Carry On
by SparklyCupcakeKitten
Summary: Kristyn and her family have been going for about two months trying to get to the Refugee Center in Atlanta. Facing the struggles of the cruel world, Kristyn meets a man by the name of Daryl and they try to make it together, until they discover that it is fake and are led to a new group. Rated T because it's the Walking Dead. I don't own TWD, I only own my Origional Characters :3
1. The Chase

We ran. What else could we do? The walkers weren't the only threat to us anymore. People were just as bad if not worse than the dead. Desperation had been the only thing that had controlled them. They wanted our food, medicine, and especially the few guns and ammo we had.

Going through the forest and I was trying to keep an eye out for my Father, Mother and little sister Karmin. All I could hear was gun fire, and knowing that the bullets were coming towards us wasn't a very comforting thing.

"Keep running Kar!" My dad yelled over the gunfire.

"What does it look like I'm doing dad!?" Karmin yelled back.

I turned back and saw that they were catching up on us. Without thinking I turned and started to shoot at them, making sure to get them in the head. There weren't that many of them, they just had more that they could use against us, meaning weapons of course. I shot most of them down, leaving two of them. They kept yelling and shooting at us telling us "You brought this on yourself! You should have just given up!" No. Giving up wasn't an option for me. I turn back to see them still catching up on us, but I took care of one more of them leaving just one. I heard a scream. It wasn't a man's scream either. It was my mother's. I shoot the other man down, not killing him, luring the walkers into his scream. At this point there were at least 30 walkers following the gun shots.

"MOM!" I yelled. Where could she be? Until I looked ahead and saw. There was a walker eating away at her arm. I quickly took care of the problem and ran to my mother, my father and sister following. "Mom, what happened?"

"It... it just jumped out at me." She whimpered. She was losing blood... fast... and there was nothing I could do about it.

"But... mom... why didn't you... YOU SHOULD HAVE CALLED FOR ME! I COULD HAVE SAVED YOU MOM!" I was crying at that point... I just felt so... useless...

"No... it would have been too late by the time you got here Kristyn."

"Honey... Oh god... what should we do Kristyn?" My sister, who was only 16, was sitting by our mother, holding her hand, and crying.

"Dad... There isn't anyth-"

"No, there has to be something we can do!" He yelled.

"SHHHHH! You will just lure more in and we will all die."

"Tell me what to do and I will do it."

"Dad, there is absolutely nothing we can do... I'm sorry." I had to be strong. The man was losing his wife, even though I was losing my mom, the woman who had taught me everything, been there when I needed her to be... been my friend. "The most we can do is end her suffering, not let her turn into a walker."

"No... we-"

"Do you really want to face her becoming a monster?"

"No... but-"

"Dad," Karmin whispered, "We have to do it." We both looked at her in shock. She was so... innocent... but this world... It changed us all.

"Adam, you have to." My mom whispered.

"Sarah! You don't know what you are talking about!"

"Are you really willing to take my choice away from me? Make me turn into one of those monsters?"

I could see my dad wasn't going to give in easily...

"Dad, it's her choice."

"Fine... But... I won't watch... I can't."

"No one is asking you to Adam."

"I can do it." I stepped in. I was crying, of course. I heard my sisters cry squeezing my mothers hand and my mom squeezing back. "Anyone want to say their goodbyes?"

"Sarah... I love you." My dad said. It was all he could manage to get out.

"Oh mom. I love you so much!" Karmin said.

"I love you both."

"Mom... Thanks for being there for me. I love you. Just tell me when you're ready..."

"I love you all. Never forget it. I'll always be there with you." Me and Karmin leaned down and gave her a kiss on the cheek, while our father gave her one last peck on the lips. "Go ahead. I love you guys." She said with tears streaming down her face.

I fire the gun sending the bullet that ended my mothers life into her brain.


	2. Infected

It was over. My mom was gone. My dad was gone, not really, but he didn't talk like he used to. He was just an empty being who looked like our father. He hardly ate what we offered. He was getting skinnier and skinnier by the day.

We cleared out a diner and boarded up the windows so we couldn't be seen. It went well for a week. We kept trying to get dad to eat, even if it was just a bite... nothing. He wouldn't even say a word. Karmin was freaking out, I was the only one who was partially sane after everything. But my sanity was slowly fading away.

Everything was going okay though. No attacks on the Diner. The pantry there was even full of cans. So someone must have been here before us, but they left their stuff, so who cared, we were basically set for 2 weeks now. Of course I had the cans in our duffel bags in case we had to make a run for it.

"Dad... Dad... DAD!" Karmin screamed to get his attention. He didn't even look at her.

"Dad, you listen to me now. LOOK AT ME!" He popped his head up meeting my gaze. "If you do not start doing as I say, I will put you outside." I hated threatening him... but... it got him to look at me and listen to me...

He just nodded. "Good, now dad... you need to eat something."

"Not hungry." He muttered.

"FINE! Starve to death!" Those are words I wish I had never said...

* * *

I woke up the next to a moaning sound. I look up and see my dad lying on the floor.

"Dad?" I said. "Dad? What's wrong? Are you finally ready to eat?" I laughed a little bit, I knew he would want something sooner or later! He sat up and looked at me with dead eyes. "God no..." He stood up and stumbled toward me and I could feel the tears running down my face. "Dad..." I grabbed my knife and jammed it into his head. When he fell to the ground Karmin woke up and screamed. "Karmin... did you know dad was bit?"

"No." She looked away.

"Karmin did you know!"I yelled.

"NO! I would have told you!"

"Then how did he turn? I don't even see any bite marks on him, or even scratches."

"What it he got scratched or bit on the stomach or legs?"

"No way we could have missed Kar, he would have been bleeding through his clothes..."

Then a sudden realization came to me. If my dad wasn't bitten... or scratched... could it be? "Kar... We're infected."


	3. Visitors

"How can it be?" She asked me.

"Does it look like I know?"

"Oh God... Dad... It's just you and me?" I nod, not surprised she isn't sad. He had never really been there for us and especially not recently... He left us to survive on our own.

"Do you want to stay here or move on?"

"Stay... as long as it is still safe."

"He turned in here... he didn't break in. But I need to get his body out of here."

"Just you? You don't need my help?"

"Well your help would be appreciated. But I know you. You couldn't handle it." She wasn't even that much younger than me... only three years, Me being 19 and she 16. And yet, she was so much less mature than me. I could handle this, while she had a hard time walking out the door and into it.

"Fine."

* * *

We lasted another week. We had to get moving soon if we wanted to get to the Refugee Center in Atlanta. Maybe two more days.

We had a lot of extra food since dad didn't eat any of it so that added about another week onto our food supply. All that was left to get was a few more weapons for the rest of the journey and a car.

"Karmin..."

"Yeah Kristyn?"

"We need to try to get to Atlanta."

"But we are perfectly safe here. Why would we need to leave?"

"It won't be safe forever. Don't try to trick yourself into believing it will be Kar."

"We have food, the windows are boarded up, what else could we need?"

"Shhhh." I heard a car pull up. The doors slammed shut and I realized that they had gotten out.

"Merle! The windows are boarded up! So either someone is here, or they were and left."

"Shit..." I whispered under my breath. "Kar... Stay quiet, go hide now!"

"Anyone in there?" The man called. "Listen if someone's in there, we don't want no trouble!"

I put my gun up peeking through a crack in the board and saw a man walking along with a crossbow.

"What do you want then?" I called out.

"Some place safe to stay for the night."

"Any funny business and I blow your brains out. Understand?"

"One hundred percent ma'am."

"Yeah..." I opened the door, "Don't call me 'Ma'am'."

"Come on Merle!"

"Good lord! Lower your voice!"

"There ain't a eater around here."

"Hmmm... that's what you call 'em?" then I realized I sent Karmin to hide. "Karmin! Come on out!" She came out of hiding the second Merle walked in with some of their supplies, which mainly consisted of a few weapons. They really didn't have much at all. "So why did you decide to stop here?"

"Seemed like as good a place as any." Merle said.

"What are your names?" The other man asked. "I'm Daryl Dixon. and this is my brother Merle."

"I'm Kristyn Kennedy and this is my little sister Karmin. Do you guys need food or something? We have plenty. Have some." I know I shouldn't have been giving our food out like that, but they were staying here and looked starved.

"Sure. Thank ya."

"So how long you ladies been on your own?" Merle asked.

"Since our dad died last week." Karmin said.

"Sorry to hear that." Daryl said.

"Yeah... but we manage. He never really did anything anyways... since our mother died he has been a walker pretty much, leaving me to do all the work, then one day he just turned."

"Yeah. There wasn't even a scratch on him either- well that we could see at least. Maybe a walker bit him on the ass-"

"Karmin, watch your mouth. What would momma say if she heard you talking like that?"

"Sorry." I heard Daryl snicker.

"You have something to say?" I giggled.

"Well, there are dead people walkin' around out there and your worried about your sister saying 'ass'."

"People have their priorities and makin' sure she ain't cussin' is one of mine."

"Seems kinda weird to me but who am I to judge."

"Are you leaving right away in the morning when you wake up?"

"If ya want us to go we will."

I don't know why, but I felt like I didn't want him to go.

"Oh... Okay. Hey you should get to sleep, its gettin' dark out there."

* * *

I woke up to a person shaking me. Not just any person, it was Daryl.

"What?"

"We need to get out of here. NOW!"

"Why?"

"Eaters. They are surrounding the place."


	4. Escaping the Diner

**HEYYY! So I am super duper happy because people are taking a liking to the story and such :3 If you guys could leave reviews for me and tell me if you want me to do something that would be AWESOMENESS! Well anyways, back to the story. Last chapter Daryl told Kristyn that they needed to go because the "eaters" were coming. (Eaters is what Daryl calls the walkers in The Walking Dead Survival Instinct game :3) Well, I will continue the story! :3 Thank you guys for reading!**

* * *

"What? There was no noise or anything! This isn't possible!"

"Sorry sweetheart, but apparently it is. We can talk about it later! Get your stuff and lets get goin'!"

So I did as I was told. I got the few duffel bags we had full of our clothes, food, and weapons. "Karmin! Listen, you HAVE too be careful out there. Understand?" She nodded. "Stay close." I kissed her forehead. "We will get through this, I promise." Promising something like that was extremely foolish. In this world promising to keep someone safe... it wasn't possible to keep them safe. You could lock them in a room and hope nothing gets to them but nothing else. I saw tears going down her face. "Listen... I know you are scared okay. I am too, but you have to stop and calm down, once we get to Daryl's truck you can cry all you want."

"No she can't, I ain't listenin' to it."

"Shut up..." I face palmed. "You ready?" She nodded and we went out the door.

Daryl used his crossbow to get the few walkers that were really close to us. He retrieved some of them, unable to get them all and got into the car. Merle got on his motorcycle so me and Karmin could fit in the truck. We were then on our way.

"How did they-" I began.

"Don't even ask how they found us..." Daryl said.

"Why... If I don't understand I may as well ask."

"They don't go anywhere in particular... they wander until they find food. I think that they are smart enough to know that when one is going in one direction, he must know where food is, so it follows. They all just showed up. Nothin' else to it..."

"Karmin... are you okay?" She was looking out the window on the passenger side, me being in the middle.

"Yeah..." she said quietly.

"Are you crying?"

"No."

"Do you want to?"

"No... Can you leave me alone please?"

"Oh... Okay... I'm... Sorry." I looked out the window on Daryl's side, kind of upset. Did I do something wrong. I wanted to ask her so bad, but didn't want to upset her. I let out a sigh and looked ahead at Merle. I don't know why, but I could kind of feel he was a total douche bag. The rest of the ride was silent until we had to stop and move a car, but not just any car... it was a big ass black Hummer. I went up to the front of it, looked in the car for any walkers. None. I opened the door and got in. Oh god I wanted this car. This was my dream car, if it could even be called a car, before the world had gone to shit. I turned around to look in the back. Whatever made the person leave it must have been pretty bad because in the back seat I saw two duffel bags FULL of something. I got out and opened the back seat door.

"Holy shit!" I practically screamed as I opened the bag. "Get over here!" The first bag had been filled with all sorts of guns and other fun toys like knives and an assortment of explosives. The second had a shit ton of ammo.

"Christ... What is is Kristyn?"

"Do you see this?"

"Hell... I'm glad you looked in here." He had told me to not waste my time earlier.

"Yes, and since I found all the fun toys, I get to keep the Hummer."

"What ever..."

"YES YES YES YES!"

"Quiet down!" He whisper-yelled.

"Sorry... I always wanted a Hummer... but alas they were too expensive to have."

I got in the front seat turned the key and saw the tank was 3/4 of the way full. Yet another YES! The odds of finding this were so small. I moved the Hummer, went to get my and Karmin's stuff and put it in the back, to find three full gas cans. Seriously... who would leave this truck?

We got in, and drove off, waiting to arrive in Atlanta.


	5. Safe Haven

We were only a few miles out of Atlanta. So close to escaping this mess of a world. Until we saw a car driving on the road in the opposite direction. Daryl and Merle were driving in front of us and they stopped, got out and pointed a gun at the car. Shit... I got out and joined them leaving Karmin in the car with a gun for her just in case. A young Asian man in a baseball cap got out of the other car.

"Stop, I don't want to kill you!" He screamed out to us.

"What do you want then?"

"Uhh... To know where you are going?" He half asked half said.

"Atlanta. The refugee center?"

"DON'T! I mean... don't... you will die entering the city."

"What do you mean? Are they shooting people down and rejecting them now?"

"No... the refugee center... it was just a rumor. The city belongs to the geeks." All the weird things the people call the things.

I started shaking, tears streaming down my face. It was my idea to go. If we went, it would have been on me. If I had lead my parents and Karmin into the city... "Oh god..."

"Hey, you okay?" Daryl asked, looking almost concerned.

"It's all gone... there isn't a point anymore... We just have to live out here and hope to not be devoured by a fucking zombie..."

"Don't talk like that... You have to be strong for Karmin." He put a comforting hand on my shoulder, something clearly new to him, because he hesitated before doing it.

"I can take you to a safe place. Well, kinda safe, we obviously have look outs to make sure nothing sneaks up on us. But safer than sitting here. Come on I'll lead you to it."

We all got back into our trucks and the Asian man lead us to his camp. It was just above a quarry.

"GLENN!" I only assumed that it was the Asian man's name. "What you got trailing behind you!" I couldn't see the man yelling, but he had a somewhat strong southern accent, and yet not as strong as Daryl's. Meaning the man yelling was probably from a less redneck-ish area.

"What does it look like?" I hear a woman call from behind him.

"More survivors. They were heading to Atlanta... Shane I couldn't just let them go and die."

"It's just more mouths to feed Glenn."

I hopped out of the Hummer went to the back grabbed the duffel with food in it. I walked over to Shane and threw it at his feet.

"There, happy?"

He unzipped it and saw a lot of food in it. I threw the 15 or so cans from the back of the Hummer in the bag as well.

"Does that earn our keep? Along with us doing what ever else you may need to get done around here."

"Of course. I'm Lori. This is my son Carl. and The man is Shane. What are your names?"

"I'm Kristyn. Hey guys come on out." The other three piled out of the car. "In order, Daryl, Merle, and the girl is Karmin my sister."

"Welcome to the quarry."


	6. Chatting with Daryl

I had to help with Laundry and some cooking... yay. But helping with the Laundry was pretty fun because with all of us girls we were basically laughing the entire time.

"So, what shall we talk about today?" Andrea asked.

"BOYS!" Amy, Andrea's sister, blurted out. "Not any in the camp... ewwwww... old boyfriends and stuff!' I face palmed... Oh lordy. I felt like her and Karmin would get along well.

"OOOOOH YES!" Karmin said.

"One time there was this guy, his name was Andrew, and he was the most AMAZING person ever, he got me flowers and everything and he was SOOOO SWEET!" Amy squealed. Andrea, Jacqui, Carol and I all laughed. "What? What about you Kristyn!"

"haha... no. I didn't really date any boys..."

"Did you date gir-"

"NOOOO! Fine fine! I will tell you about one... who should I tell you about... None of them were really amazing... didn't do anything special..."

"What about Damon?" Karmin said.

"Fine... I'll tell about Damon... I dated him just last year actually. We moved in together after about a month, which may seem soon, but I was almost sure that he was 'the one'. He was one of the most sweet guys ever, treated me right. But when the time came, he was really good in the sac-" i cut myself off and looked at Karmin. She had no Idea big sister had had sex yet... we lived in a good Christian home. "Kitchen!" I blurted out. "He made the best food... like ever." Karmin gave me a weird look. Andrea just started laughing, she understood what it was like trying to keep your baby sister innocent.

"How about a different topic." Jacqui said while giggling.

We ate dinner late. "We are gonna need someone to go into town, check to see what is there. Get it before other people have a chance to take it. I hate talking that way but-" Shane said. He was right though. Even though we weren't in need of food or anything really (Except another tent... really I was sleeping in the back of my Hummer because I didn't want to just be crammed in a tent with a few other people. One or two I could handle... but they wanted Karmin, Andrea, Amy and me to stay in a tent together... Yeah... not happening.)

"I ain't going. I'm going huntin' try to bring back a deer." Daryl said. I rolled my eyes. I knew he would do that. For part of the night at the diner he talked about hunting.

"I'll go. Even though I don't want to." Merle said. I heard silent groans across the fire. Nobody liked Merle. He ate and slept and did drugs... that was it.

A few other people volunteered to go. They were Glenn, T-Dog, Jacqui, Andrea, and Morales.

After dinner, Daryl was walking alone into the woods and I followed him. I found annoying him... Fun. Only because everyone annoyed him by just being there, but no matter how hard I tried to get him to flip out, he just kept his cool.

"What you want?"

"To talk."

"Why?"

"'Cause I feel like it."

"What you wanna talk about?"

"I don't know." I was saying all of this stuff in a very schoolgirly tone while twisting a finger through a strand of hair.

"Well, then why you here still?"

"What do you want to talk about?"

"You leaving me the hell alone."

"Okay. Where do you think I should go, by the fire or to my hu-"

"IN the fire."

"Okay, okay, I'll stop annoying you. I'm... uh... really glad you aren't going to Atlanta to get supplies." He looked up at me the moment I said that.

"Why?

"Because if you did there would have been a small chance you wouldn't come back."

"What do you care about it?"

"Fine. I try to have a REAL chat with you but you clearly don't care."

"Kristyn... It was a serious question."

"Because I care if you live or not." and walked away.


	7. Story Time

**This part is a little longer. Thank you guys SOOO MUCH for reading it and reviewing. I am kinda just posting chapters as I write them, because I can. Muahahahahaha. Just kidding if anyone wants me to slow down, I can try :3 Okay well enjoy!**

* * *

"Wait!" He called to me.

"What?" I said, clearly irritated.

"I uhhh... I care if you die too."

"Oh my GOD! Daryl Dixon is showing feelings!?"

"... yeah..."

"Hehe, well goodnight."

"G'night." He said to me and pecked my cheek. This is a totally new side of Daryl and I'm kinda freaked out by it...

The next morning the group was headed off to Atlanta, and Daryl was off hunting by the time I was up. I still felt SUPER weird about what had happened the other night and Karmin noticed that I was... off about something.

"Kristyn, what happened last night? You just walked off. You seem super weird right now."

"Nothing Kar, don't worry about it for now."

"I have to worry about it, you're my sister!"

"I said don't worry about it for right now..." I said in an angry tone and walked off.

The day went on and the girls all finished laundry. I had nothing to do for a few hours so I sat and talked with Carl and Sophia, two of the kids in the group.

"Hey guys."

"Hey Kristyn! How are you?" Sophia asked. She was possibly the most adorable girl I have ever seen.

"Pretty good. what are you guys up to?"

"Not much. We were just going to go play some checkers. But we can stay and talk with you if you want!" Carl said enthusiastically.

"You guys don't have to, it's okay. Go have fun." I told them.

"Okay Kristyn! See you at dinner!" Sophia said and they ran off to a table.

"Alone again..." I whispered to myself.

"Kristyn?" Amy half asked half said to me.

"Yeah Amy?" I said, excited to have someone to talk to.

"Well, everyone here feels like they don't know you... like at all. So I was wondering how you would feel about telling me about how you got to this point?"

"If you really wanted to know, you could have just asked silly. Well, I was going to college in my town, just a small technical college because I was poor and didn't want to spend a whole shit load of money on school. So I was going there, but my parents had offered me to stay with them in their home while I went. So Karmin, Mom, Dad and I still lived in the house I grew up in. One night we were sitting by the T.V. and it was a news report about what was happening, the 'sick people'. It didn't seem so bad at first so we just stayed there in our house waiting for the whole mess to be over. We saw the report saying there was no way out, but there was a refugee center in Atlanta. So I made my family get out of the house, after gathering what few supplies we had. We were off in the wild alone. We saw a few more people on the way, but they were not a threat to us. We traveled a long way until our truck broke down and we had to go on foot. One night though... we set up camp in a forest, It was right by a farm house too, so we figured we would be safest out in the country. We almost made it through the night until we heard screams come from the house. Meaning the people were inside and probably got over run. But then I heard gun fire and knew... there were other people killing these poor people in their own house. I heard a rustling come toward us and knew we needed to make a run for it. I grabbed the few things that we had, got everyone up and we all ran. Of course the people were following us by this point, must have seen us just take off or something. They followed us... shooting at us too. I turned and shot down a few of them, doing what needed to be done in the moment. There were two of them left still shooting at us shouting at us. That's when I saw all the walkers come up from behind them. There were at least 30 of them. I shot one more man down... but I heard a scream... a woman's scream... it was my mothers." My voice was very shaky at this point and I felt some tears stream down my face. "I shot the other man, but didn't kill him... no... I shot him in the knee letting the walkers get him. It was for a distraction of course. After I did that I ran to my mom and found her with her arm in a walker's hand. I quickly took care of him... He had gotten a point where she would bleed out really fast... and die really fast... Dad and Karmin all ran up to me and mom. We had to say our goodbyes so we could... take care of the problem... I had to shoot my mom in the head so she wouldn't turn...

We had to leave her there... there wasn't really a choice. We were on the road again for about a week until we found a diner. We had to fix it up a little, board up the windows and such, but otherwise, there was some food there that we took, which is what I have brought here. My dad wasn't eating though... not after mom. We tried, but it didn't work. One morning I woke up and he was just... dead." I decided to leave out the part where I find out we were all infected... I just felt like it would freak everybody out even more than they had to be. " The next night Daryl and Merle showed up. there was an attack the next morning on the diner by the walkers, so we had to get out of there fast, which we did. And that is all the important stuff I guess." Amy looked teary eyed.

"So... you actually shot your own mother?"

"Yeah... I couldn't let her become a monster... just couldn't..."

"Oh god... I'm so sorry..."

"It's okay. Karmin and I are safe now... that's all that matters."

I looked around and saw a bunch of people gathered around who must have been listening.

"So Daryl and Merle just found you in a diner?" Carl asked.

"Uhhh yeah... well they were looking for shelter for the night so we let them in. I made my stand, telling them if they tried anything they would be dead. I wasn't going to lose my sister from some stupid asshole shooting her..."

"Story times over... let's make the food."

"Hehe good plan, I'm starving."


	8. Daryl's Return

**Any of the things that happen in the show I will be putting the lines in from the characters, but not perfectly because I don't memorize the whole show like some people :P**

* * *

After dinner we were just waiting for the group that went to Atlanta to come back. They had been gone all day... The sun was just about to set when we heard a car alarm blaring.

"Shit... Who would drive that up here?"

"Don't know yet. But we'll find out soon." Shane said.

As the car arrived, it was Glenn. "Why you driving that thing up here!?" Shane yelled at him. While Amy was bombarding him with questions about Andrea.

"POP THE HOOD!"

"OKAY OKAY!" he said replying to Shane. Jim yanked out the part that was causing the noise, and Amy still asking if Andrea's was okay. "Yes, Yes she's fine Everyone's fine... Well... Merle not so much, but-"

"What do yo mean Merle not so much?" I asked

"uhhh he kinda got left on a roof."

"Glenn... Daryl's gonna be pissed off..."

Then a box van drove up the hill and everyone got out, except for a man sitting in the drivers side of the van. They all got out and I kinda just slumped down worrying about what Daryl will do.

"What happened to Merle?" I asked quietly.

"How did you guys get out of there?"

"New guy." Morales said.

"New guy?"

"Yeah, guys a cop. like you."

The man got out of the car and all I could hear was Carl shout "DAD!" I knew that his dad had died in the hospital when the whole thing started, so how could he be here? Lori looks as though she has seen a ghost, she looked scared.

"How did he get left on a roof? Couldn't he get out!?" I Basically screamed so people could hear.

"Uhhhh... Rick, the new guy, uhhhh hand cuffed him to the roof..."

"Why?"

"He was shooting at geeks, wasting our ammo, and drawing more of them toward the store we were in. And he beat the shit out of T-Dog." Andrea said.

"Why didn't you unlock him from the roof... you must have had the key Rick..."

"I kinda dropped it down a drain..." T-Dog said.

"Oh god... Daryl ain't gonna be happy..." I said.

"It had to be done... he was out of control."

"You left a living, breathing human being on a roof to die of god knows what. What if the walkers get at him?"

"I used a chain and padlock before I left. He will be up there, no geeks getting at him."

"Oh yeah, so now he can die of thirst... great..."

Everyone split off again. A few of them still chatting about their miraculous escape. Night came and we all split off and went to sleep.

I woke up somewhat late. Everyone else was up. My guess that the time was about 11:00 a.m. checked the little clock I had going in my car and saw that it was 11:43. "Damn... I slept long."

I jumped out of the Hummer and just heard two loud screams. Carl and Sophia. I grabbed my handgun and ran along with everyone else. We saw Carl and Sophia. Both of them were fine.

When we got to where the problem was, we saw a deer lying on the ground with Daryl's arrows sticking out of its side, and a walker eating its neck.

Under my breath i whispered with a smile. "Daryl's back." then I realized that it may not be a good thing he was back. "Shit... Daryl's back..."

By the time they cut off the zombies head, the deer must have been no good. There was a rustling in the bushes and Shane raised his gun. And out popped Daryl.

"Son of a bitch. That's my dear. God it was gnawed on by this Filthy" kick "Disease-bearing" kick "Motherless" kick "Poxy bastard."

"Calm down that's not helping anything."

I started to zone out... bored... then I heard a biting noise coming from the ground.

"Oh don't y'all know nothing? Its gotta be the brain." He walked over by me, kissed my cheek and said "Hey."

Everyone but Rick gave me a look that said "What just happened?" I shrugged my and followed Daryl. "It's fine. I got some squirrel. 'Bout a dozen or so. MERLE! Get yo' ugly ass out here! Got us some squirrel. Let's stew 'em up."

"Daryl... about Merle." I said.

"What happened?"

"Well... uhhh."

"Is he dead?"

"We don't know." someone cut in.

"He either is or he ain't."

"He's on a roof. Hand cuffed there."

"What?!"

"Your brother was out of control, so I handcuffed him to the roof." Rick said

"Wait let me process this. You're tellin' me you just handcuffed my brother to a roof and left him there?!" Daryl pulled out his knife. Shane then pulled Daryl into a choke hold. "You'd best let me go!"

"Well I think its better if I don't."

"Choke hold's illegal."

"Well you can file a complaint."

"I want to have a calm discussion about this. Do you think you can manage that?" Daryl tried to speak, but could breath by this point.

"SHANE! Stop he can't breath!" I called out, making Shane drop him at once.

Catching his breath, Daryl said, "Just tell me where he is and I'll go get him."

"He'll show you. Isn't that right?" Lori said.

People kept talking until I realized Rick asked Glenn to go with and T-dog just volunteered to go.

"That's four men we're risking."

"Not just four. You're risking the entire camp by doing this Rick."

"Not just four... five. I'm going." I said.

"Why?"

"Because I will be more useful there than I will here."

"Well... There's five."

Daryl shouted from the box van after honking the horn. "LET'S GO!"

I ran to grab my cross bow, one of the many goodies I found in my Hummer.

We drove down the hill to get toward Atlanta. Then the van stopped.

Glenn turned around and said "We walk from here."


	9. Finding Merle

**well... I have noticed a few spelling mistakes... one of them being "Chock" instead of Choke... and I accidentally called the hummer a jeep in one part... YAY I WIN AT WRITING!**

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"What do we get first?" Rick asked Glenn.

"Merle. We ain't even having that discussion." Daryl said.

"Yes, we are."

"We get Merle first. Getting the guns first would mean doubling back."

Glenn led us all to the building Merle was in. There were a few walkers roaming around.

"Damn... you are one ugly skank." Daryl said before shooting a walker in the head with his cross bow.

After that we ran up the stairs to the roof. We opened the door to the roof and looked around for Merle.

"No!" Daryl screamed. I look over and see a hand sitting in a pool of blood. Daryl raised his crossbow and pointed right at T-Dog's head, making Rick pull out his gun.

"I will shoot you. I don't care if every walker in the city hears it."

Daryl put the crossbow down and asked "You... uh you got a do-rag or something?" He was handed a bandanna, and walked over and wrapped up the hand, walked over to Glenn and put it into his backpack.

"My brother's one tough son of a bitch."

"That may be, but anyone can die from blood loss." Rick pointed out.

Daryl started to follow the tracks of blood his brother had left until we got into a kitchen like room. I saw a piece of metal with burnt skin on it.

"What's the burnt stuff?" Glenn asked

"Skin." Rick said

"Told ya he was tough. Feed him a hammer and he'd crap out nails. He didn't lose enough blood to not be able to break out of this place."

"He's out in the streets? Is he crazy?"

"You couldn't kill him. I'm not so worried about some dumb dead bastard."

"What about 1,000 dumb dead bastards?"

"Listen, we can go out there and look, but not without those guns."

So we set up a plan. Glenn wanted to run out and get them alone with the four of us sitting in two different alley's.

So we went out to them. Daryl and I had our crossbows ready to shoot if needed.

"You got balls for a Chinaman."

"I'm Korean."

"Whatever."

I couldn't help but giggle a little.

Me and Daryl hid behind a dumpster. He heard something walking up on us and put a finger to his mouth, clearly telling me to be quiet. He jumped up and saw that it was someone no older than me. "Whoa whoa! Don't shoot me!"

"You seen my brother!?"

"AYUDAME!" He shouted. Daryl tried to shut up him. Then all of a sudden two guys jumped both of us, one hitting Daryl with a baseball bat and the other kicking me. Glenn came back and I heard the two men shout,

"That's the bag! GET IT!" Leaving me and Daryl alone, Daryl shot an arrow into one of the men's ass while I grabbed on to the one who was shouting before. The men took Glenn, Daryl, Trying to yell at them to let Glenn go, but his voice was lower than the moans of the walkers. Rick and T-Dog ran up to us.

"What happened?"

"This little bastard's bastard homie friends took Glenn! I'm gonna stomp your ass." He shouted trying to kick the boy in the face, but Rick shoved him away. "God lets go before they find a way in here." They grabbed the bag of guns and Rick's hat and we ran.

"They got Glenn. They may have gotten Merle too."

"Merle? What kind of hick name is that? I wouldn't name my dog Merle." I was sitting next to him while Daryl once again tried to kick him in the head. Rick pushed him back, but I slapped the kid in the back of the head, pulling out my gun and putting it to his head.

"You'd best watch what you say. I won't hesitate to blow your brains out." I heard Daryl snicker. "Now, you're going to lead us to where they took our friend, understand?"

"I won't tell you anything."

I cocked the gun, "How about now?"

"Shoot me. I don't care."

"Just wait Kristyn." Daryl said. He went to Glenn's backpack and pulled out Merle's hand. "You wanna see what happened to the last guy that pissed me off." He threw the hand at the boy. "Think I'll start with the feet this time!"

"OKAY OKAY I'll tell you!"

And we were off to find Glenn.


	10. Back To Camp and On the Road Again

**So, since I am not doing anything right now, I figured I would update... a lot today and tonight. So here is the 10th chapter :3 I am thinking about making this one super long :3**

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He led us straight to his people. We had his hands tied behind his back and pushed him against the wall until we were ready to go.

"Any funny business, and I'm shootin' an arrow in your ass. Just so you know." Daryl said.

"G is gonna take that arrow out of my ass, and shove it up yours. Just so _you _know."

"G?" Rick asked.

"Guillermo. He's the man around here."

"Let's go talk to Guillermo, shall we boys?" I said with a smile. I had my crossbow up pointing toward the garage door as it opened up, Daryl with his toward the boy. A man walked out with a large group behind him, two of which were the assholes that were kicking and hitting Daryl and me.

"Did they hurt you?"

"They threatened to cut off my feet."

"Cops do that?"

"Not him, This redneck puto over here. He cut off some man's hand and showed to me."

"Who is that guy to you anyway? You don't look related."

"He's with me. We're in a larger group, out doing some scouting." I said, making Daryl look at me with a look on his face like "What?" it was quite fun to make him feel awkward.

"You got my brother in there?"

"Sorry, fresh out of white boys. But we got Asian. You interested?"

"We have your man, you have ours. Seems like a fair trade." Rick said.

"Don't seem fair to me. Felipe got shot with an arrow. Where is the compensation for their pain and suffering. But more to the point, where's my bag of guns?"

"Your bag of guns?"

"The bag Miguel saw in the street. The one Felipe went out to get. That bag of guns."

"Your mistaken... It's not yours. It's _my_ bag of guns."

"Anyone could come along and say it was theirs. I'm supposed to take your word for it. Now you can come back here with my bag of guns and get your boy back, or you can come back locked and loaded. Then we'll see who spills more blood."

We started to walk backwards and back to our hideout for the day.

"What are we going to do. We can't just give them the guns Rick." I said.

"Yeah those guns are like gold. And gold won't keep your family safe and put food on the table. You really willing to risk that for Glenn?"

"What life I have, I owe to him."

"But your really willing to risk it all for him? What if Guillermo doesn't keep up his side of the deal?" I said.

Miguel looked at me, "You callin' G a liar?" He asked in a very sassy kind of tone.

Daryl came over and smacked him on the head. "You wanna keep your teeth? Watch the way you're talkin' to her."

"You guys head back. You don't need to be dragged into this."

"Rick, what would you like me to tell Lori and Carl when I go back without you? No. I'm not going back and leaving you."

"Me neither. We're here for you." Daryl grabbed a gun, and I pulled my two out of the holsters attached to my by a belt.

We went back to Guillermo. "I see my guns, but their not all in the bag."

"You have your man, I want mine."

"I'm gonna cut up your boy, feed him to my dogs. The nastiest man eating bitches around. I picked them up from satan at a yard sale. You know what I said, are you woefully deaf?"

"My hearing is fine. You said come locked and loaded, here we are."

I half turned my body, pointing one gun behind me at the men coming from behind us and one pointing toward the front.

All of a sudden, out of nowhere, I heard a woman call out, "Felipe! It's Mr. Gilbert. He is having an asthma attack. Carlito can't find his medicine."

"Get the old lady out of the line of fire!" Daryl called out.

"Felipe go take care of it!" Guillermo called out.

"Don't you take him. Felipe has his troubles be he is pulling together."

"Ma'am we aren't here to arrest your grandson. They are... helping find a missing person. A man named Glenn."

"The Asian boy? He is with Mr. Gilbert, come, I show you."

the woman grabbed Ricks hands and lead him to the back. I had my guns up until they put theirs down.

We saw Glenn helping take care of the old man I only assumed was Mr. Gilbert.

"What happened?" Rick asked.

"He got an asthma attack, he couldn't breath." Glenn said.

"Man we thought you were being eaten by dogs!" T-Dog shouted. Glenn turned around to show three chihuahua's lying on a doggy bed, making me laugh a little.

Rick was off to the side talking with Guillermo.

"So, I'm with you am I?'' Daryl asked.

"Oh shut up. Who cares? We're in the same group. That's what I meant" I said feeling my face get warmer... oh yeah... he so couldn't tell I was bluffing...

"Oh, well, fine. I wouldn't have cared if you meant me and you were together." He said nudging me a little with his arm. and my face was getting warm again... We saw Rick walk off into another room with Guillermo and we followed.

"The staff, they just left, leaving the old folks here to die when things got bad..." Guillermo said.

"So what are you? A doctor?"

"Felipe's a nurse. I'm the janitor. People always come... trying to steal our food... medicine. "

"We're not like that." Rick said.

"How was I to know. You show up with guns and Miguel. What else am I to suspect of you?"

"Here." Rick said, handing Guillermo his gun. He started to pull out roughly half of the guns and ammunition from the bag.

We were then walking back to the box van to find that it had gone missing.

"Who would have taken it?" Glenn asked.

"Merle..." Rick said.

"He's gonna be takin' a lot of vengeance back to camp." Daryl said.

"Let's start running." I said.

We were about halfway up the hill to the camp when we heard it. Screams, gunfire, and they were all coming from our camp.

I looked over at Daryl. "Shit... Faster!" I said.

We arrived about three minutes later, shooting every walker I see, never missing the target. I start to look around. Where's Karmin? I look over by the fire and I see someone lying on the ground. "No." I whispered. I run over. Tears streaming down my face looking at the blood running down from Karmin's shoulder. "OH GOD! KARMIN!"

She opened her eyes and looked at me. "I-I'm s-s-s-sorry Kri-st-yn." she said in a very shaky voice.

"Shhhhhhh." I whispered as I brushed some of her long blonde hair out of her face which was splattered with her own blood. "I'm sorry. I should have been here. I shouldn't have gone. I should have stayed by you. Karmin... I love you." I kissed her forehead knowing I only had seconds left with my sister.

"I-I love y-you t-to." Her eyes closed, her chest stopped moving. I felt for a heart beat, praying it was still there. Nothing. I could only have a few hours before she turned.

"I'm sorry I failed you..." I whispered knowing she couldn't hear me. I heard someone walk behind me and kneel down next to me. It was Daryl. "She's gone... Everything I fought for... gone." I hugged him and cried into his shirt. He just sat there and patted my back comfortingly. When I pulled away from him, I looked at my sister one last time. She looked peaceful. Like she was just sleeping. But the blood splatters all over her reminded me she wasn't. She was gone, I would never see her again. I pulled out my knife.

"What are you doing?" Daryl asked.

"Making sure she doesn't become a walker." I said still sniffling from crying. Tears were still running down my face though. I jammed the knife into the side of her head, making sure to destroy the brain. "I'm... I'm gonna go to bed... Good night. I'll be in my hummer if you need me." I walked away.

In my hummer about 20 minutes later someone knocked. I opened it and it was Daryl. "You shouldn't be alone... not tonight."

"Thanks, but you really don't have to."

"It's fine." He climbed in and laid down next to me. I instantly scooted over by him and snuggled up for the night.

I woke up with a strong arm over me, clearly Daryl's. My face was sticky from crying all night and I felt like absolute shit.

"Hey. You okay."

"My sister just died... you're really asking me if i'm okay?"

"Right... sorry."

"I'm assuming that we are going to take care of the bodies today... right?"

"Probably."

"Oh."

We got out of the hummer and people looked surprised that Daryl hopped out along side me. "People... Really... I am NOT in the mood to be stared at right now. Whatever, he slept in the hummer with me. Is it your business? No so butt out." I snapped.

People looked away and continued to do what they had to, dragging the walkers to the fire, smashing their heads if they were in our group. Daryl and Morales were dragging someone from our group over to the fire when Glenn said. "What are you doing? this is for geeks! Our people go over there. We don't burn them! We bury them."

"You reap what you sow." I looked up surprised he just said that. He looked down at me (I was sitting by Karmin's body.) apologetically.

"Shut up man." Morales said.

"Y'all left my brother for dead! You had this coming!" I felt tears going down my face again. I know he wasn't aiming it at me, I didn't leave his brother plus I went to go help him find Merle. And yet it still hurt to hear him say that.

I picked up Karmin's body. (She was really really short, only 5 ft. and only weighed about 85 lbs, so she wasn't heavy at all to me. Daryl came over trying to help me. "Does it look like I need help?" I snapped.

"No... Sorry." I looked at him apologetically after saying it to him like that.

I laid her down next to the others.

"JIM'S BEEN BIT!" I hear Jacqui scream.

"Show us!" Daryl shouted as T-Dog- went up behind Jim and held him so Daryl could lift up his shirt to reveal a bite.

Later Jim was sitting next to the RV and we were talking about what to do.

"We should put a pick axe in his head and the dead girls and be done with it." He said gesturing to Jim and Amy, who also died last night.

"Would you want that?"

"Yeah, and I'd thank ya while you did it."

"We should head to the CDC, its Jims only chance."

"You guys can talk about finding some aspirin and I'll take care of the problem!" Daryl shouted, but before finishing his swing, he heard a gun cock right next to his ear.

"We don't kill the living."

"Well that's funny, coming from a man who just put a gun to my head."

"Fine. We go to the CDC hoping to help Jim." Shane said. He had wanted to go to Fort Benning, which was 100 miles in the opposite direction from the CDC.

Later on in the day we went up to bury our dead. Daryl helped me put Karmin into a grave, tears, once again streaming down my face. I had to go down in it to lay her head down gently. Daryl helped me out and we walked back to the campsite.

I went into the RV by Jim who was with Jacqui at the time.

"Hey Jim. How are you?"

"I've been better. I'm sorry about your sister. I tried to help her, but I was too late. I stopped it from eating her to the point she died though."

"Thank you. Do you need anything?"

"I'm good for right now. Thank you Kristyn."

We had to pack up camp really fast, but we were on the road again... on the way to the CDC with enough time to get there just before it was dark out.

We were about halfway there when the RV stopped.

"It's Jim! He's in really bad shape! He said he wants us to leave him here." Rick went in to talk to Jim.

"It's what he wants. We can't make him go. It's his choice." Rick said.

They brought Jim out and put him against a tree and we all said our goodbyes, jumped back into our cars and were off one last time. We got to the CDC just before nightfall. We saw a few of the dead walking around, but it was nothing that a few arrows couldn't take care of.

"Any second the door should open. Hello? Is anyone in there? Please, we have women and children, no food, hardly any fuel!"

"Rick its pointless! We can't be in the city past dark!" Shane yelled dragging Rick away.

"YOU'RE KILLING US! YOU'RE KILLING US!" And the second Rick started to walk away with the rest of us the doors opened showing a bright light.


	11. CDC

**Guys... my internet crashed five times while writing this chapter... It better be good... or it will have all been for nothing.**

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We all ran into the room, me and Daryl covering the back.

"Who are you?" the man asked us. He was holding a shotgun looking very nervously at us.

"Just people looking for a safe place to take shelter. I'm Rick."

"Doctor Edwin Jenner. You have to take a blood test. That is the price of admission."

"We can manage that.

He led us to an elevator.

"Doctor's always go around packin' heat like that?" Daryl asked.

"They were around. I familiarized my self with them. But you all look harmless enough. Except you, I'm going to need to keep an eye on you." He said looking at Carl.

We all got out of the elevator and Jenner led us to the lab where he drew our blood.

Then he led us to the kitchen. It was kinda a small celebration. Everyone was passing around a few bottles of alcohol.

"In Italy, they let the children have some wine with dinner! And in France." Dale said to Lori, trying to convince her to let Carl try some.

"Well when he is in Italy or France he can have some then." She replied.

"Oh come on, what's it gonna hurt?" Rick asked.

"Okay. Let him have some."

Carl took a sip and his face practically twisted in disgust. "Ewww! That's yucky!" He exclaimed.

"You'd best stick to soda pop there bud." Shane said

"Not you Glenn!" Daryl said.

"What?"

"I wanna see how red your face can get! Kristyn why ain't you drinking yet?"

"I'm not 21, and there are two cops in the room." I laughed.

"I think you're forgetting one tiny detail. Its the apocalypse and they can't do nothin' to ya!"

"Oh lordy fine." I went over and grabbed Daryl's bottle from him. It wasn't wine, I don't even know what it was I just took it and drank. "You ain't gettin' this bottle back, just so you know." He gave me a mock pouty face, but just grabbed another bottle, because there was plenty there. I leaned up to him and pecked his cheek and went to sit down and finish eating.

I started to feel better as I got more and more drunk. We all finished and Jenner showed us where we could stay.

"Housing is shut down, but the couches are pretty comfortable, or there are cots in storage if you want. There is a rec room down the hall the kids may enjoy, but don't plug in anything that uses power. Same goes for the adults, also if you take a shower, go easy on the hot water." I saw everyone smile.

"Hot water?" Glenn asked with a huge smile on his face.

"You heard the man!" T-Dog exclaimed.

I went into a random room, claiming it as mine. I took another swig from my bottle, and set it down to run into the shower. The hot water. OH MY GOD! BEST THING EVER! All the things you take for granted before the world ends... But I did as Jenner said and only took a 10 minute shower. I went over to the bag that I had in my room. It had all of Karmin's possessions in it. I rummaged through until I found a cute pair of pink plaid shorts and a white tank top that exposed my belly button. I grabbed my bottle again, sat on the couch and pulled out one of our family albums that I grabbed. I started to look through all of the happy memories I had with my parents and sister. I scanned through the book until I heard a knock on the door.

"Come in." I called.

It was Daryl. He walked in holding a cot in one hand and a bottle of alcohol in the other. "Hey, I brought this if you want it."

I took another drink of my bottle. "Aww thanks." I went over and grabbed the bottle out of his hands.

He started laughing, trying to get the bottle back, but I had them both behind me. He instantly lifted me up. "PUT ME DOWN!" I yelled while laughing.

"Not 'til you give me mine back!"

I realized the door was still open and Glenn was standing there laughing his ass off at us.

Daryl backed up a little and kicked the door shut, me still in his arms.

"You can have it back now." He set me down, "Just kidding!"

"You little shit!" We just ran around the room, just having a good time, screaming at each other. I took the last swig of my bottle.

"HA! Daryl..." I said with a pouty face. "Can't you share with me?" I started to pretend to cry.

"Awwww," He came over looking like he was about to give me a hug and then he snatched it out of my hands, "NOPE!" I tried to run after him, but tripped over my own feet. I literally just crashed down on him and I laughed.

"I'm so sorry!" I said laughing, still on top of him. I pecked his lips. He then proceeded to pull me into a deeper kiss. One that led to something... different than a kiss that I won't go into...

The next morning I woke up wrapped in Daryl's arms, but had a killer hangover so it totally killed the moment. I woke Daryl up and we walked to the kitchen area. People were looking at us... again.

"Really? Two adults having an adult relationship is too weird for you guys? Stop staring!" I said.

"Sorry, just Daryl doesn't seem like the type to... date... he just seems so... Daryl, lets just say that." Andrea said.

"I'll take that as a compliment." Daryl said. I grabbed his hand and we sat down next to each other. I lean on his shoulder.

"Hangover?" Lori asked and I nodded.

"It's killer."

"Here take one of these."

"What are they?"

"Just take it. Jenner said it would help." I just took one, and handed one to Daryl.

Rick walked out after us and Carl asked "Do you have a hangover? Mom said you would."

Lori handed Rick the pills.

T-Dog came out with eggs and put some on all of our plates.

"I have never had a hangover this bad." I said.

"You were so afraid of what the two cops in the room would do if you drank and now you admit you've been drinking before?"

"Yeah, I really didn't care the cops were in the room... I knew they couldn't do anything to me, I just didn't feel like it, but then I had fun when i started to drink." I looked at him and he just smiled and started to laugh. "Glenn looks like he is going through hell right now."

"Yeah...don't let me drink... ever again."

"Doctor? I don't mean to bombard you with questions right away, but-" Dale started.

"But you will anyway..." Jenner said.

"We didn't come here for the eggs." Andrea told him.

He led us all into the "Big Room"

"Vi, power up the big room."

The big screen turned on.

"Show play back of TS-19"

"TS-19?" Andrea asked.

"Test subject 19. A patient who was infected and offered to have the process be recorded. Show first event."

We saw a brain. Carl asked if it was a brain, and Jenner said "An extraordinary one." We saw parts of it turning black. "It infects the brain like meningitis. Scan to second event." We saw the brain go entirely black. then a tunnel followed it.

"There isn't a cure is there?" I asked.

"We can't cure it if we don't know what it is exactly."

"One more question. Why is that clock counting down?" I asked.

"It is counting down the minutes until facility wide decontamination."

"What does that mean exactly?" Daryl asked.

Jenner hesitated before answering. "The air is going to set on fire."

"What?"

"Exactly what I said.

"Go grab our stuff, we're getting out of here." Rick said. I saw Jenner go over to a computer, so I started to run for the door, but he put in a code to shut it and I was too late.

"JENNER YOU OPEN THIS DOOR!" I shouted at him.

Daryl came over with an axe and started to chop at the door.

"You'll never get through that way."

Daryl walked back over to Jenner. "And why is that?"

"Those doors are built to stand against a rocket launcher."

"WELL YOUR HEAD AIN'T."

People started to restrain Daryl and I sat and cried. This was it. I was going to die like this. After everything I fought for, even if I am the only one to live in my old group.

It took a lot of begging and pleading to get Jenner to finally open the door. We ran down the hall to the rooms and Grabbed the few bags we could and ran up the stairs. We tried to get Jacqui and Andrea to come, but they wanted to stay. Dale stayed behind to try to get Andrea to come.

We got to the surface level and started to hit the glass with the axes we had taken.

"Rick! I may have something that could help." Carol said.

"Carol, I'm sorry but I don't think a nail file's gonna cut it."

She ignored him and pulled out some sort of grenade.

We went some ways away from the glass and got down, Daryl right next to me. The glass shattered and we all ran out of the building. Daryl and I ran to the Hummer, he didn't want to bring the truck anymore, plus it was basically out of gas. We saw Andrea and Dale come running out of the building. As they got closer to us, the time was ticking down. "GET DOWN!" I heard someone yell. Daryl put an arm over me and pushed me down, him being in the drivers side. The building exploded and right after Andrea and Dale got in the RV. We were off. Away from the CDC.

"You okay?" Daryl asked, sounding concerned.

"Yeah. I'm fine, just scared that's all."

"You know you're still in your pajama's right?"

"Ha, so I am." I was thinking about going to the back and changing out of the P.J.'s but decided against it.

We all drove off, on the highway, trying to find a new place to settle.


	12. Taken Over

**So if you don't have the second season DVD set for the Walking Dead, then you won't know about this scene. It is in the bonus features and not many people have seen this, so if you haven't here are the lines for it :P Only in Kristyn's pov it may be a little different. You could probably find the scene on youtube :3 oh and I may as well throw this in here too :P She isn't in her pajama's any more. She is in a deep red tank top, like a cami, ripped up black skinny jeans, and a pair of tan knee high boots, but no heel in them :P**

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Daryl kept driving, until Rick and the RV came to a stop. I recognized the place they had stopped, but I didn't know how I knew it. We jumped out of the car and heard a little bit of arguing about the choice.

"You mean, we are staying in a place that the people kidnapped Glenn in?" Dale argued

"We parted on good enough terms." Rick explained.

"Yeah. We gave them half the bag of guns. They will throw us a damn party." Daryl cut in on the argument.

"Rick, I just don't know about it," I said as we keep walking into the entrance, "They have so many people to feed already and adding, what, twelve more is kinda a lot. Are you sure?"

"I'm Sur-" He said, but was cut off by the walkers eating away at some of the people that had been the lookout for Guillermo.

I put my guns up, but realized we were in the city. "Screw the noise." Rick told us, and we all started shooting at the walkers until every one of them was dead. "Let's get inside."

We opened the garage door and went to the building in the back, the one where the old folks had been staying. We opened the door to find many corpses lying around the building. "Well, shit..." I mumbled under my breath.

"Daryl, Kristyn, Shane and I will go have a look around. Everyone else barricade that door." I grabbed my crossbow off from around my back, and started to walk around the building. It was terrible in two ways. One: The smell was AWFUL! Two: All of the old people were shot in the head. They weren't overrun by walkers. No, people did this.

I was behind Daryl, and he looked into a room that had the words _Prayer Changes Things _painted onto the door. "Guess that didn't work out to well for ya did it hoss?" Daryl said, trying to make a joke out of the situation. I blew it off and kept walking. We checked every room and found no walkers.

We all met in a big room after Rick and Shane came down the stairs.

"What happened here?" Lori asked.

"They got over run by walkers. It's pretty obvious." Andrea said making Daryl give off a little sigh. "Do you have something to say?"

"Yeah, how about _Observant_?" Daryl replied.

"_Observant_? Big word for a guy like you." She snipped back at him.

"These people weren't bit, they were all shot in the head, execution style. Y'all are worried about walkers, I'd be more worried about who did this." He said to her, making her look down, clearly upset she hadn't seen it. "Get a dictionary, look it up. _Observant_." He said while pointing to his head. I couldn't help but giggle.

"We cleared out a few rooms. Top floors our best bet. We can barricade them if we need to." We all nod and take the few things we brought in up.

We all gathered in a room that I think was supposed to be a kitchen. "What did you guys find for food?" I was super pissed because Shane carried the food in the CDC, but never brought it out. Now the kids were going hungry and it was mostly his fault...

"Can of beans. That's all." Daryl said.

"Here guys, courtesy of the CDC." Shane said handing out a few bags of potato chips. "I was thinking I was gonna be having late night snacks in my room... Glad I grabbed 'em now though. I also got this." He pulled out a bottle of alcohol.

"Is that to share?" Daryl asked. Oh Daryl you silly, silly man.

"Yeah. Here take the first drink."

"Don't mind if I do."

"You guys go easy on that. Don't forget where we are right now."

"Yes Ma'am." Daryl said after popping the bottle open and taking a drink, then handed it to me. I took a sip, that was all I wanted, and gave it to Shane.

"Do you have any water?" Sophia asked in a soft voice.

"Just the one bottle I grabbed. Only a sip or two. Let's make it last." Shane told her.

"Where do we go now?" Lori asked Rick and Shane.

"Fort Benning? Rick?" Shane said.

"I should have listened to you Shane."

"All these people. Who would have done something like that. Just come in here... and murder everybody... even all the old people. How sick is that?" Glenn whispered. I saw Sophia curl into her mother's arms.

"Is this something we should be discussing right now Glenn?" I asked.

"Everybody should get some sleep." Shane said after getting up and Daryl, Rick, and Glenn followed him out.

I walked over to Andrea and sat by her. "You okay?"

"Not really." And it was clear she wasn't. She looked like shit.

"Listen, I know its hard. I lost Karmin, but try to understand this. She doesn't have to be scared anymore. Karmin is finally out of a world of pain and suffering. And so is Amy."

"It's not so much Amy anymore. I would be dead now, finally out of this hell. Dale was staying and I didn't want his blood on my hands."

"Oh... I get it now. I'm sorry. If you need anything I'm here for you."

"Thanks Kristyn."

I got up and walked over and just slumped in a corner. When Daryl walked in, I got up and instantly hugged him. "I'm scared." I told him. I wasn't going to lie to him.

He hugged back and just whispered "I know. There's a few rooms down the hall. You can go take one if you want."

"What about you?"

"I got to sit on watch in a little while, may as well not go to sleep yet."

"Can't you just come sit with me for a while?" I said taking his hand and dragging him along. When I laid down on the bed, I instantly cuddled up to him and fell asleep.

When morning came Daryl was back in bed, but lying there awake.

"Mornin' sunshine." He said with a half smile. "We should get up, we are probably heading out soon. No point in stayin' here too long."

And he was right. Rick and Shane had already put the few bags we brought in into the RV.

We left the nursing home and began our journey to Fort Benning.


	13. Herd On The Highway

We were driving down a highway, heading toward Fort Benning. Me and Daryl were on his motorcycle, Glenn was driving my Hummer, Rick, Lori, Carol, Carl, and Sophia were all in the Cherokee, and the rest were in the RV. We drove pretty far, but we came across a bunch of cars just piled in, making it almost impossible for us to pass... well... impossible for the RV to pass. Daryl turned around to get next to the window of the RV to talk to Dale.

"Is there a way through?" Dale asked. Daryl simply gestured with his head that Dale should follow. We were maneuvering pretty well, until the RV started to spit smoke out the front causing us all to stop. Daryl turned around one more time and stopped right next to the RV. I hopped off.

"Can you fix it?" I asked.

"With the right tools, yes."

"While we're here we should scavenge for supplies." Rick said.

"This is a graveyard." Andrea said.

"I don't know how I feel about this." Lori told Rick.

"It's either we take the stuff or someone else does Lori." I said to her.

"Look for food, water, and anything else we may need." We all nodded and split off. I went a little deeper into the cars than everyone else. I took a duffel bag that I emptied out into my Hummer so I could fill it with anything I find. I also brought a knife along with me, just in case. I found a car that had a few cans, bottles of water, and a few knives. I figured that they would have be helpful at some point in time. I opened another car up and found a big suitcase. I opened it up, trying to see the goodies inside and found a makeup bag. "Hmm... makeup... not much use for that now is there?" But I did pull out a bottle of shampoo. I missed shampoo. We didn't get to use it often anymore. Okay the last time I got to use shampoo was in the CDC and I thought I wouldn't have a use for that, so I just put it back. I found a few more things and then turned to head back.

That's when I saw it. A huge group of walkers heading toward me. None of them saw me because I was hidden behind a car. I started to walk carefully back to the group, hiding behind cars, being careful not to make any noise. I found a little triangle area of cars that none of the walkers were in. I was ducking behind a car door, until I felt something grab my ankle. I pulled out my knife ready to stab whatever it was, until I looked down and saw that it was Daryl with a corpse on top of him.

"Get down." He whispered. I instantly laid down next to him, pulling another corpse onto myself. We were lying there for a good ten minutes. We got up after waiting a couple more minutes after the last few had gone by. "You tryin' to get yourself killed?"

"I was coming back... to make sure you were fine..."

"Next time, just get under a car and assume I'm fine."

"Fine. Sorry for caring."

"Help me with T-Dog."

"Oh god. His arm!"

I helped Daryl get T-Dog to his feet and walk him back to the group.

"Someone help T-Dog." I half-yelled.

They took T-Dog into the RV. I noticed Rick wasn't there and I noticed Carol crying. "You okay? What's wrong."

"Sophia's gone."

"What? What happened!?"

"She peeked her head out too soon and a couple of walkers saw her. I ran out after her and told her to go back to the Highway when the walkers and I were out of sight. I thought she came, but when I got here she wasn't here."

"Let's get out there!"

"Nope, not you." Daryl said.

"What? Why?"

"Just the men. Okay?"

I slumped against the Hummer. "Fine... Be safe." I said right before giving him a kiss. I hugged him and they were off into the woods searching for Sophia.


	14. Search for Sophia

Shane used the Cherokee to move a car that was in the way. We were going to turn around and go down another way that Glenn had seen on the map, but needed enough space for the RV to turn.

"Why are we here?" Carol asked, tears still filling her eyes. "We should be out there looking for my little girl. Why are we just moving cars?"

"When Rick and Daryl get back we need to be ready to move out, make enough space for the RV to turn around." Dale told her.

I must say that Carol wasn't the only one who was nervous. Daryl was out there, at risk and there wasn't anything I could do if he needed help. Sure It was a little different. Sophia was Carol's daughter, but it didn't make it any less scary. Shane told us that Rick told Glenn and him to come back and keep people calm and tell them they found her trail.

It was almost dark when they made it back, without Sophia sadly. I literally jumped into Daryl's arms, almost causing him to lose his footing, but he saved it and hugged me back, holding me off of the ground. He started to chuckle and said "Hey, miss me much?"

I felt a tear start to go down my face, "You were gone for so long," I whispered, "you scared the shit out of me Daryl."

"Sorry." He whispered back, setting me down. "Oh stop your crying." I started to laugh a little, then held it in realizing the situation we were in.

" Where's Sophia? Why isn't she with you?" Carol cut in, tears forming in her eyes once again.

"We couldn't find her, but we got her trail."

"You should still be out there." She sobbed.

"The dark's no good, we'd just be trippin' over ourselves."

Carol then turned to Rick. "How could you leave her out there on her own?"

"It was her best chance."

"She's just a child, how is she supposed to find her way back? She's just a child."

"We'll continue looking tomorrow. Like Daryl said, we got a trail. We'll all go out. We won't leave this area until we find your little girl, I promise."

"I- Is that blood on you?" Carol asked through the sobs.

"We took down a walker. It was no where near Sophia."

"How can you be sure?" Andrea asked.

"We cut the son of a bitch open." Daryl said.

Sleeping arrangements were hard that night. Not everyone could fit in the RV, so me and Daryl just went and stayed in my Hummer.

I cuddled up to him. "I was really, really scared when you didn't come back with Shane."

"Sorry, but I couldn't have you out there, if something happened to you..." He trailed off.

"I would have felt better if I was with you."

"I felt better knowing you were here and could hide under a car if something was passing by."

"You can't always protect me, Daryl." I told him. "I mean, lets face it, I made it months without any help, my parents and sister didn't know what to do, so I had to keep them safe. Me, all alone, no one to help me. I was taking care of people before I even knew you existed."

"They didn't help you? Your parents I mean."

"Nope. I was the only one in the family that even knew what to do."

"Kristyn... you know we could... uhh..."

"Oh god... You're one horny bastard aren't you!" I laughed.

He chuckled. I pulled him in for a deep kiss that once again led to that thing that is more than a kiss, that I will not describe!

I woke up in the morning. I decided to put on a pair of white shorts and a light pink tank top and a pair of running shoes that I had. Instead of my contacts I wore my geek glasses (Kinda like the glasses that hipsters tried to rock, but I look cuter in them) that I brought along. The contacts started to irritate my eye, so I had no choice. I got my cross bow and a few knives and a gun and now I was ready to go help find Sophia. I walked out and Daryl looked at me in confusion.

"You wear glasses?"

"Yeah. Problem?"

"Nope, none at all. Just didn't know."

"Well, you learn something new each day." I laughed.

"Now Kristyn, you are one hundred percent sure you want to go?" Daryl asked me.

"Yes, anyways, you'll be with me. Nothing will happen as long as your there, right?" He nodded and I laughed a little. "Make you feel any better?"

"Stay close to me though."

"Yep yep! I won't leave your side!"

Everyone was ready to go and we walked through the forest on our search for Sophia. Daryl led the group, me close behind him. We came up on a tent.

"She could be in there." Someone said from behind me.

"Could be a whole lot of things in there." Daryl pointed out.

He went up to the tent, got his knife ready, stood there and waited for Carol to call out to Sophia.

"Sophia? Sweetie? It's mommy. We're all here baby, you can come out now." She said in a whisper.

No one came out, so Daryl went in and came out about a minute later. Holding a gun.

"Guy did what Jenner said, Opted out."

We continued walking, until we heard Church Bells ringing in the distance. We all started to run, me still keeping close to Daryl. We got there and they opened the door, revealing four walkers sitting, staring into the front of the room. Rick, Shane, and Daryl quickly took care of them. "Hey J.C., you takin' requests?" Daryl asked mockingly toward the statue of Jesus on the cross.

"Rick, I told you it was the wrong church, there's no steeple man!" Shane yelled out. Seconds after the ringing occurred again. Daryl was the first one out. He ran to the side of the building seeing a little metal box attached to a large speaker higher up. They disabled the box and the ringing stopped.

"I'm going to go inside for a bit." Carol said, Lori and Carl followed her. No matter how short the day seemed, we were losing sunlight.

"We have to go back, Rick. We only have a few hours of sunlight left, and it will take about that long to get back."

"We're so close Shane. We can't go back yet." Rick argued.

Everyone else came out of the church after a few minutes.

"Me and Rick are gonna keep looking for a while. Daryl you lead everyone back to the highway."

"Are you sure I wouldn't be more useful out here?" I rolled my eyes. He's so worried about me all the time, but when it comes to taking us back to the highway, making sure we get there he would rather stay out and look for Sophia. MAKE UP YOUR MIND MAN!

"No, you lead everyone up."

"Go on Carl, go with everyone else." Rick said to his son.

"I'm going with you. You said you want to cover more ground right?"

"Be safe. When did you start growing up?" Lori said as she hugged her son tightly.

"Lori, take my gun." Rick said while trying to hand it to her.

"I'm not leaving you unarmed."

"Here take one of mine." Daryl said. I saw Andrea give him a dirty look for that. Dale had taken her gun, afraid she was going to kill herself.

We bid farewell to the three of them and were off me and Daryl in the lead. I leaned over and whispered, "Andrea's pissed off. You gave the gun to Lori and not her."

"And does it look like I care?" He whispered back to me.

"Take it." Lori said bringing the group to a stop. "I'm sick of the looks you are giving me. So take it." Andrea took the gun. "Carol, you have got to stop blaming Rick, It is in your eyes every time you look at him. When Sophia ran he didn't hesitate for a second. I don't think any of us would have ran after her the way he did."

"Here..." Andrea said giving Lori the gun back. She then went to Carol. "I'm sorry for your little girl. I kinda know how it feels."

"I guess you do. I just keep hoping and praying she doesn't end up like Amy." Andrea's face fell. "Oh God. That is the worst thing I have ever said."

"It's okay. We're all hoping and praying with you, for what it's worth."

"I'll tell you what it's worth. Not a damn thing. All this hoping and praying." Daryl cut in. I was kinda taken aback by that comment until he continued. "You know why? 'Cause we're gonna find that little girl. Good Lord. Am I the only one zen around here?"

Shortly after the stop we heard a gunshot.

"Why just one shot?" Lori asked.

"Lori, they probably just took down a walker." I said.

"No way they would risk the noise for just one." She said.

"Well whatever reason it was Lori, we can't help it now. I'm sure they're fine." Daryl said to her.

We kept walking until we heard a scream. It was Andrea's. We all ran to find her. We didn't even realize she was that far behind us. We see a walker on top of her. I get my crossbow ready, until I hear a horse galloping toward us. There is a woman with short brown hair on the horse with a baseball bat. She swings at the walker and hits it in the head.

"You Lori?" She asked.

"Yeah, what's wrong?" Lori asked with worry in her voice.

"It's Carl. You need to come with me now."

"You can't just go with her?" Daryl shouted.

"She knows Carl's name. I'm going."

She hopped on the horse and the woman said. "We live on a farm a few miles from the exit on the highway. The name is Greene. You come as soon as you can."

The walker sat up and started to moan. Daryl, clearly pissed off, said "Shut up." And shot it in the head with his crossbow. We followed him back to the highway and told Dale and T-Dog what had happened.

"We can't just go. What if Sophia comes back?" Carol asked.

"That would be terrible if she showed up and no one was here."

"I'll stay here with the RV." Daryl told us.

"If the RV stays I stay." Dale said.

"I'll stay too." Glenn said.

"Not you. You take the Cherokee and go."

"Why always me?" Glenn asked himself.

Daryl looked at me, "Oh no. I'm not going if you're not going."

"It's safer there."

"And I told you that I'm not going. I don't care how safe it is."

"Fine," He huffed, " but you stay by my side at all times."

"You act as though I intended to go out on my own."

Glenn left, Dale kept watch, Carol was lying in bed crying clearly not going to sleep any time soon, I was sitting on the opposite side of Andrea who was taking her gun apart over and over again, and Daryl was lying on the ground, trying to sleep, but kept awake by all the noise.

"Come on Kristyn."

"Where are we going?"

"To look for Sophia."

We went outside and I grabbed my crossbow and a few knives from my Hummer and Daryl told Dale that we were going.

"Do you really think she will come back?"

"Sure, I was lost once."

"She is twelve and there are cannibalistic freaks walking around."

"I was only nine, sure there weren't any walkers around then, but she has the advantage. People are actually out lookin' for her."

"No one was looking for you?"

"Nope, Merle was in Juvie, and my dad was with a woman, so he didn't really care what happened at the time."

"Oh god..."

"Yep. Lived off of some berries in the woods. Had to wipe my ass with poison oak though. Found my way home on my own eventually. Went on in and made myself a sandwich. My ass itched something awful though." I couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah.. You laugh at my itchy ass."

We had to come to a stop. There was a walker hanging from a tree, a note on a tree right next to him.

"_Got Bit, Fever Hit, World gone to shit, Might as well quit." _Daryl read. "Dumb bastard couldn't think of shooting himself." I was about to puke.

"Can we change the subject? When did you learn to shoot?"

"Had to learn to survive. Needed food. Just like the walkers. They gnawed away at the flesh on his legs."

And I puked. "Thought we were going to change the subject Daryl.''

"That can be payback for laughing at my itchy ass."

"Not much came up. It's fine." It wasn't fine. My mouth now had the aftertaste of vomit inside of it.

"Lets head back."

"You aren't going to shoot it?"

"Nope, it's a waste of an arrow. Let the dead bastard hang." I didn't question him. He was dead, couldn't feel anything, knew nothing of his former self, so what did it matter to me? We headed back and told Carol we didn't find anything then went to sleep.

We wrote on the hood of a car where we were and left a bunch of supplies for Sophia. The note just told Sophia to stay in the car and that we would come back everyday. Daryl got on his motorcycle, Andrea took Shane's car, I got in my Hummer and Dale took the RV. We were off to the farmhouse that was supposedly safe.

* * *

**I don't know if anyone is wondering what Kristyn looks like, but I will tell kinda anyways :P**

**So, I made the cover for it and that is what her face looks like, but she isn't very tall, and her hair is long.**

**Eyes: Brown**

**Hair: Brown**

**Height: Roughly 5 ft. 2 in.**

**Hair length: Mid to lower back, but it is usually in a pony tail.**

**She has some muscle, but not so much that it is showing.**

**She is usually wearing either her Black ripped jeans or a pair of shorts and a tank top with either hiking boots or running shoes, or if they aren't going to be going scouting or anything, a pair of flip flops or flats :3**

**And from now on in the story she will be wearing her glasses :P**


	15. Harsh Words

We arrive at the farm house only minutes after leaving the spot on the highway. We pull up pretty close to the house and I instantly jumped out of my hummer and ran up to Rick and Lori.

"Is he okay? Can I go see him?" I asked anxiously.

"He isn't awake, when he wakes up I will send someone to get you." Lori tells me.

"Okay, awesome, but what happened?"

"An accident. That's all it was. A stupid accident. Otis, a man here, shot a buck. Carl was looking at it really close, and the shot went through the dear and into Carl."

"Oh..." I said, not knowing what else to say about it. I saw Shane standing up against the house in goofy overalls that made me want to laugh, I also noticed that he shaved all his hair off.

We went back to where we were staying and set up "camp". After that we were sending people out to look for Sophia.

"How long has the girl been lost?" Hershel, the owner of the farm, asked.

"Only a few days." Rick answered.

"Here's the county map," Maggie, the girl who came and took Lori, said. "It shows terrain and elevations.

"Perfect, we can finally get this organized. We can start searching in teams." Rick said.

"Not you, not today. You gave three units of blood. You wouldn't be hiking five minutes in this heat before passing out. And your ankle. You push it now and you will be out for months. No good to anybody." Hershel told them.

"Guess its just me. Imma head back to the creek and work my way from there." Daryl told us.

"Not just you. I'm coming." I said to him.

"Nope you stay here, finish whatever needs to be done." I sighed knowing there was no point in arguing.

"I could still be useful." Shane cut in, "Drive up the interstate, see if she wandered back."

"Alright. Tomorrow then. We'll start doing this right." Rick said.

"That means we can't have our people out there with just knives. I've gotta train 'em like I promised."

"I prefer you not carry guns on my land. We've managed so far without turning this into an armed camp."

"With all do respect, a crowd of those things-"

"This is your property. And we will respect your wishes." Rick cut in. He then set his gun down. Shane followed.

"I hate to ask this, but someone has to." Shane said. "What if we find Sophia and she's bit? We need to be clear on how we handle that."

"Do what has to be done."

"And her mother. What do you tell her?" Maggie asked, clearly disgusted by that comment.

"The truth." Andrea told Maggie.

"I'll gather and secure all the weapons. Won't let them have them til we're on the practice range. Just one request. One rifle for look out. Dale's got experience."

"Our people would feel safer. Less inclined to carry a gun." Hershel nodded. "Thank you." Daryl walked away and I followed.

"You know Daryl, I would be more useful out there..."

"You ain't goin'."

"Why not? I could take my crossbow and just go and be perfectly fine."

"What if there's a herd?"

"Run like hell."

"No. You ain't goin'."

"I don't see the problem here."

"If you got bit... what would I do?"

" How is you going out there any different than me going out? What would I do if you got bit? What would I do? How is that any different?"

"It's just is."

"Fine... whatever..." I said while I hugged him. He left, but I wasn't giving up that easily. Oh no. I was going to go look for Sophia.

Shane stopped me before I could go out into the woods. "Give me your guns."

"Shane... I don't even bring them out anyways... You don't need to take them."

"Rick told me to."

"No from what I recall you said you would collect them. They are staying in my car."

"I'll just break into it and take 'em then."

"God Shane... You're an asshole." I walked over to my hummer and grabbed the two I had kept for myself (I had given the rest to the group.) and handed them to Shane. "Here."

"That wasn't that hard was it sweetheart?"

"Fuck off." I yelled mockingly while I got back in the hummer and grabbed my crossbow and a few knives just in case. I then went off into the woods

I got pretty far out, seeing nothing, then realized that the sun would be going down in about three hours, just enough time for me to get back to the farm. I was about twenty minutes from the farm, when I heard some rustling in the leaves. I look over and see four walkers stumbling over toward me. "Shit." I started to run back, forgetting I had my cross bow, but either way I couldn't reload that fast. I ran for about ten minutes until I started to lose my breath. One was getting really close to me, moving faster than the others, I tried to grab my knife, but it was too late, the walker was on top of me about to bite me. I held it off with my arm, until an arrow flew into its head. I pushed it off of me and looked up to see Daryl.

"Yeah, we're gonna talk about this when we get back. Hope you know that." He pulled the arrow out of the walkers head and pulled me up. We started to run back, but realized we needed to take care of the problem. I pulled out my knife and took care of one, while Daryl shot one with an arrow and got the other with his knife. At that point we started to walk back at a comfortable pace. "You tryin' to get yourself killed!?" He yelled at me.

"I'm sorry." I whispered.

"No! You almost died Kristyn! Can't you listen to anything?!"

"Sorry I wanted to help Daryl!"

"God! Let's just get back."

"Thank you for saving me..." I said shyly.

"What if I wasn't there to save you? What would have happened then?"

"Then... I don't know... I won't go out again. Is that what you want?"

"I want you to listen to me. To trust me. I knew you couldn't take care of a problem like that. I knew it, but you didn't trust me. I can take care of myself, but you need someone to protect you."

"I took care of my family just fine."

"Yeah, you took care of them all right... That's why they're all dead right." That one hurt. I felt a pain inside that hurt really, really deep. I felt tears start to stream down my face. "Oh my god... I'm so sorry. Kristyn, I didn't mean it." I didn't listen though. I didn't care what he had to say at that point.

"How could you say something like that to me?! To anyone for that matter!?"

"I didn't mean it, it just slipped out and-"

"If it just slipped out, you must have been thinking it, right?"

"I-"

"Just shut up. Please?"

"I'm-" I heard him sigh after that.

When we got back to the camp, I went into my hummer and curled up and cried. I still didn't understand why he would say something like that. He seemed like a good enough person. Maybe I was wrong though. I heard multiple knocks on the door, assuming it was Daryl I opened the door.

"You have a lot of apologizing to do... I hope you know that."

"I do, that's why I'm here."

"Okay, shoot."

"Okay, so you clearly know how I feel about you. I was just scared. Freakin' out. You almost died today, and if I didn't get there in time... I don't know what I would have done. I didn't mean to bring in your family, hell if someone brought my family into, I would beat the shit out of them, bu-" He was interrupted by me, punching him across the face. "What was that for?"

"Just doin' what you said you would do, only I toned it down a bit. I'd say you had that coming." I laughed. I couldn't stay mad at him.

"Okay, fine, you did earn that."

"Hell yeah I did. You are now forgiven."

"You ain't going out there alone again are ya?"

"Nope... One walker encounter is enough for me thank you."

"That's what I thought. You wanna stay in here tonight or come into the tent?"

"Why don't you stay in here with me for tonight?"

"Don't mind if I do." I cuddled up to him. It wasn't possible to stay mad at him, no matter what he said.

I went out of my hummer the next morning and went into Daryl's tent, well our tent I guess you could say, and got dressed. I put on a black sundress and a pair of flats that I found in Karmin's bag of things. I then put my hair into it's usual pony tail, and put on my glasses. The contacts I had were now shit... sadly... I was stuck with my glasses.

I went out and saw some eggs, so I just took some and sat next to Daryl. "What you all dressed up for?"

"Well, my dear, dear Daryl, I decided since I am no longer allowed out into the woods that I would make use of this while it is still warm enough to wear it. And it is a sun dress. It is meant to be worn on sunny days silly."

"Whatever."

"Daryl told us about what happened in the woods yesterday. The walker attack. You okay? Didn't get bit right?" Lori said.

"Fine. No bites or scratches. Just a little sore. How's Carl?"

"He's in and out of consciousness, but Hershel said he will be fine. You can go see him if you want."

"Awesome! I'll go by him a little later." I said right before taking a bite. "What needs to be done today Lori?"

"Laundry mainly."

"All righty! I can help with that!"

That's exactly what we did. Daryl went out again, so of course I was worried.

"Lori, I was thinking. Seeing that kitchen made me get to thinkin' I wouldn't mind cookin' in one again." Carol said.

"Cook dinner for Hershel and his family? Sounds like a good idea to me. Show our gratitude?" I said.

"That is a wonderful Idea."

"You mind extending the invitation? It would seem more official coming from you." Carol told her.

"How so?"

"Well you are Rick's wife, so that kinda makes you our unofficial first lady."

So that's what Lori did. Except she didn't ask Hershel, she asked Maggie. Andrea didn't want to pitch in here, so she was looking out on watch. We were just about finished when they told me that I could go out. I left the house and went and sat waiting for Daryl to return.

"Walker!" Andrea shouted. "I bet I could nail it from here."

"Just one?"

"Yeah."

"No, we'll go handle it."

I got up and followed, just because I had nothing better to do. They were running, but I kept up just fine. I looked up and saw what looked like Daryl, until Glenn said it.

"Is that Daryl?"

"Oh god." I felt the tears start to form in my eyes. Rick had his gun up pointing at his head, about to shoot, until...

"That's the third time you pointed that thing at my head. You gonna shoot or what?" Daryl said. I literally fell to the ground and started to cry, just let it all out. All of a sudden a bullet came out of nowhere from behind us.

Daryl fell to the ground.

"No." I whispered.


	16. Stitches

**Kind of a crappy title for the last chapter, sorry about that! Glad people are liking this though! Also, this Chapter is going to have a very shitty title... I couldn't think of anything.**

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"NO! NO!" Rick screamed.

"I was kidding!" He said before passing out. Rick and Shane picked him up.

Once again crying, I got up and walked with them back to the camp, Daryl in their arms.

"Oh god! Is he dead?" Andrea shouted.

"ANDREA YOU BITCH! THEY TOLD YOU NOT TO SHOOT! WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU SHOOT?!"

"Kristyn, calm down." Rick told me.

"Don't you dare tell me to calm down Rick. She could have killed him!"

"But she didn't!"

"Is he wearing ears?" Glenn asked.

"Let's keep that to ourselves."

"Guys. Is this Sophia's doll?" T-Dog asked.

I wanted to slap Andrea. I would have too, if they didn't take Daryl in the house. I followed them. Hershel told them where to put him, and I instantly sat down right next to the bed.

Hershel searched him for any wounds and found a big hole on his side from the back to the front, and of course the scratch on the side of his head from the bullet. I couldn't stop crying. I thought he died, and Andrea didn't help that at all.

Daryl woke up right before Hershel started to stitch his side, but Hershel managed to get the wound on his head stitched before he woke up.

"Oh god. Are you all right?"

"What kind of question is that? 'Course I'm not all right. Stop your cryin'. I ain't dead."

"Sorry." I laughed through the crying. "What happened today?"

"You're horse bucked me off, sendin' me down a cliff and put this arrow through my side. Then I tried to climb up, but fell down again. Then was unconscious, woke up and saw a walker gnawing on my boot. Stupid bastard couldn't get my leg right away apparently. Took care of him with a stick, another one came, made me rip the arrow out of my side and shoot him with it then I cut off their ears and wore 'em so I would smell like 'em. Climbed up and walked all the way back here. 'Cause I'm just that good."

"Oh god... You know, you really shouldn't tell me not to go into the woods. You practically died today."

"Difference is that the walker wasn't lyin' on top of me about to bite my arm."

"You took Nelly, as in Nervous Nelly. Where'd she go?" Hershel asked him.

"She left the country. Smart horse."

Not sure what to say Hershel said, "We're running out of antibiotics really fast, it's a wonder you people survived this long."

Hershel finished stitching Daryl up and they called people down for dinner.

"Go and eat Kristyn."

"I'm fine right here Daryl."

"Go eat and bring me some up later or something."

"Fine." I went down and ate a little.

"How is he?" Andrea asked.

"Fine. Just fine..." She was the last person I wanted to talk to. "Why did you have to shoot? They told you they could take care of it. But you just had to be the hero didn't you?"

"If I had known it wasn't Daryl I-"

"When they tell you something you should listen... I was okay with you Andrea. We were friends. Until you shot my boyfriend in the head." I got up and was about to take Daryl dinner.

"I can do that Kristyn. I have to talk to him anyway.''

"Okay Carol. I'm going up now."

I went up to Daryl and sat by his bed.

"I can't believe she shot you... She shot you... I'm pissed..."

"She thought it was a walker. She was protecting the group."

"She was told that she didn't need to use the gun Daryl..."

"Still. Don't be too mad at her."

Carol came in holding a tray of food for Daryl.

"Hey." She said.

"Hey." She then went and kissed Daryl on the head. Part of me wanted to say awww, but I felt this was more serious.

"You did more for my little girl today than her daddy ever did in his whole life."

" I just did what Rick, Shane, or any of us would have done."

"Yeah. You're every bit as good as them." She said and walked out.

I let Daryl eat and Lori came and took his tray. I slipped off my shoes and laid down on the bed next to him.

"What are you doing?"

"Sleeping here. You don't mind do you?"

"Not at all. Careful of my side though. Hurts like a bitch."

"That is to be expected." He pulled me in closer to him and we both drifted off to sleep.


	17. The Barn

**For people that care! She is wearing a white, flowy sundress... some people have a hard time focusing :P**

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Hershel said that Daryl was fine to be up and walking around, but he said that he shouldn't push himself too hard. That meant he couldn't go out for Sophia for at least a week. I just had to help do a few chores, but otherwise I was with him the entire time, making sure he didn't do anything stupid. We just sat around, talking and relaxing, which is something we haven't really been able to do since the CDC.

Rick, Shane, T-Dog, and Andrea went out looking for Sophia while Dale sat on watch. Daryl tried to sneak away with the others, but I had managed to stop him. Honestly it wasn't that hard to catch a guy with stitches in his side. After he tried to leave he pretended to give up, but when I let my guard down for a second he grabbed his crossbow and tried to walk out into the woods. I caught him, once again it really wasn't that hard, and took the crossbow from him and locked it in my hummer.

"Give it back!"

"You can either rest now and get out there sooner, or you can go now and get yourself hurt and not be able to search for even longer. Or you could get yourself killed and be no help at all. Your choice Daryl."

"None of the above. I'll go out whenever I want and come back just fine."

"Daryl... If I could get your crossbow out of your hands and run faster than you... well, you wouldn't have much of a chance against a walker. You would die... I can't stand losing another person in my life... I would die knowing I could have stopped you..." He didn't say anything, he just walked over and went to lie down in the tent. "That's what I thought..." I followed him and laid down next to him. "Where do you think you would be if the world hadn't gone to shit?"

"I don't know... Huntin'? That's where I was when this all happened. I had no idea what had been goin' on."

"Damn... at least I was in my house watching the news reports..."

"Yeah... What about you?"

"Finishing school."

"What were you gonna do?"

"Teach elementary school."

"Why would you wanna teach them brats?"

"Why not? Someone had to do it. It doesn't matter anymore... there are only two kids left in the world as far as I know."

"I guess."

"Anyways, I'm glad the world is total shit now. Otherwise I wouldn't have met you."

"Well that's lookin' at it on the bright side... considerin' that there are dead people walkin' around wanting to eat your flesh..."

I heard someone walking up to our tent. It was Andrea and she was holding a book.

"Hey. I brought this for you. It's not the best but..." She said to Daryl.

He flipped through the pages and asked, "What, no pictures?"

"I feel like shit." She admitted.

"Yeah, you're not the only one. It's fine. You were protecting the camp.''

Oh sure... it was fine... except for the fact she was told not to fire... which was left out of this for some reason...

She began walking out until Daryl shouted, "Hey, shoot me again, and you'd best pray I'm dead."

* * *

Daryl was basically in hell. He couldn't do anything except sit around and eat and sleep. We were sitting, eating breakfast, when Glenn decided he had to tell us something.

"Uhhh... so guys..." He said trying to get the attention of the group. "The barn's full of walkers." That got the attention he wanted. Everybody looked at him in shock. We all walked over to the barn to see if it was true. Sure enough it was.

Shane was looking in, trying to see how many there were. "Rick, you cannot tell me you are all right with this."

" Of course not, but we're guests here Shane."

"This is our lives man!"

"Lower your voice!" Lori said trying to calm Shane down.

"We cannot just sweep this under the rug." Andrea cut in.

"It ain't right." T-Dog said.

"We gotta go in there, make things right, or we just gotta go. We have been talking about Fort Benning for a long-" Shane was really set on Fort Benning...

"We can't go!"

"Why Rick? Why?"

"Because my daughter's still out there."

"Okay, I think it's time we consider the other possibility."

"We're not just leaving Sophia out there."

"We're close to finding this girl. I found her damn doll." Daryl said.

"You found a doll Daryl. That's what you did, you found a DOLL."

"You don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"No, I'm just saying what needs to be said. You got about forty-eight hours man. Let me tell you something else, if she was alive out there and saw you coming, all methed out with them geek ears around your neck, She would run in the other direction"

"You shut up!" Daryl said trying to punch Shane. A small war broke out, I tried to push Daryl away from Shane.

"Daryl, He's not worth it!" I yelled.

"Let me talk to Hershel! Let me figure it out!" Rick yelled at Shane.

"WHAT YOU GONNA FIGURE OUT?!"

"If we're gonna stay, and clear out this barn, I have to talk him into it. This is his land."

"Hershel sees those things in there as people. Sick people. His wife and his stepson." Dale said to us all.

"You knew?"

"Found out yesterday, I talked to Hershel about it."

"And you waited 'til now to tell us?" Shane asked in an angry tone.

"I thought we could survive one more night! We did. I was waiting until today, but Glenn wanted to be the one to tell you."

"Rick, the man's crazy if he thinks those things in there are people!" The door started to be pushed on by the walkers inside, and we backed up a little.

"Shane's an ass Daryl... Really... he isn't worth your time..."

"I know... someone needs to knock some sense into him though. Figured it may as well be me."

"Someday. And I want to watch." I said with a laugh.

He said he wanted to go off and look around. I let him, not really worrying about him. Carol later told me that he was trying to saddle a horse and go look for Sophia. She said something to get him to stop. I didn't know what, she didn't tell me, but I really didn't care as long as he was safe. I was just sitting around, reading a book, until Carl asked me to play checkers. We went and sat up on the deck with a bunch of other people. People kept showing up, but I didn't pay attention to them, I was playing a game with Carl and that was what my mind was on. Until I heard Daryl. My head popped up then, I saw Carol with him.

"DAMMIT! Isn't anybody taking this seriously? We got us a damn trail! Here we go." He said, making me look up to see Shane walking back with the bag of guns.

"Sorry bud, but can we finish this later?" Carl nodded and I joined Daryl down on the grass.

"What's all this?"

"You with me man?" Shane asked handing Daryl a shotgun. In response, Daryl took the gun. " Take yours." He said handing one of mine. "Time to grow up. Andrea, you already got yours?"

"Yeah, but where is Dale?"

"On his way."

"I thought we couldn't carry." T-Dog said.

"We have to. It's one this sitting around here pickin' daisies when we thought this place was safe, but now we know it ain't! How about you Glenn. You gonna protect yours?" He asked handing Glenn a gun. Glenn looked at Maggie apologetically before taking it. "Can you shoot?"

"Can you stop? You hand out these guns my dad will make you leave tonight!"

"We have to stay Shane." Carl said.

"What is this?" Carl's mother called in.

"We ain't going anywhere okay? Hershel will understand, well he's gonna have to. We need to find Sophia right? Carl you take this gun, you take it and you protect your mother."

Lori pushed Carl away, "Rick said no guns. This is not your call, this is not your decision to make."

"Oh shit..." T-Dog said behind us causing us all to turn around. What we saw was Rick and Hershel walking back with two walkers on snare polls. We all started to run toward them.

"WHAT THE HELL YOU DOING?!" Shane screamed. I couldn't hear what Rick said after that. "Are you kidding me?! You see what he's holding onto there?"

"I see _who_ I'm holding onto!"

"No man you don't!"

"Let us take care of this then we can talk!"

"What is there to talk about Rick? These things ain't sick! They ain't people! They're dead! You ain't gotta feel nothing for them 'cause all they do is kill! They're the things that killed Amy! They killed Karmin. They killed Otis! They're gonna kill all of us unless we do something!"

"SHANE STOP!"

"Hey Hershel let me ask you something. Can a living breathing person walk away from this?" He shot three rounds into the walker Hershel was holding. "That's three rounds in the chest! Why's she still coming?" He shot two more. "That's its heart! Its lungs? Why's it still coming?"

"Shane that's enough!"

"You're right, man. That is enough!" He then walked over to Hershel's walker and shot it in the head. Hershel fell to the ground, looking defeated. "Enough risking our lives for a little girl who's gone! Enough living next to a barn full of things that will try to kill us! Enough! Rick, it ain't like it used to be. If y'all wanna live! You gotta fight for it. Right here, Right now!" He said before bolting to the barn. Shit... Rick was trying to get Hershel to take the pole while Shane was trying to break the barn open.

"Do not do this Shane!" Rick yelled out. It was too late. Shane already broke the padlock that had held the barn shut. I got my gun ready, clearly going to be needing to use it.

The walkers pushed the door open and all started to walk toward us. Shane started to shoot, and we all followed. Making sure to get them in the head, the problem was quickly taken care of, but I knew that we were going to have to leave because of what Shane had just done.

We were all looking ahead at what had just happened, until we heard more moaning come from the barn. we raised our guns one more time, just in case. Until we saw a small figure walk out of the barn. It was Sophia.


	18. Confrontation

Sophia was a walker, Shane had been right, we were looking for nothing... meaning Daryl almost died for nothing...

I heard Carol crying and running up. "Sophia? Sophia!?" Carol sobbed.

Daryl grabbed Carol as she tried to run past him to her daughter, stopping her from getting too close to her. I started to cry. She was a little girl, and on top of that the nicest little girl you could ever meet. She didn't deserve this. She started to tumble toward us and I saw Rick go up to her and pull the trigger. She fell to the ground and didn't move. Carol was getting up to run away from what she had just seen.

"Carol, don't look." Daryl said helping her to her feet. She pushed him away and ran.

I then saw Beth run up to her mother. She was crying of course. Then her mother came back and tried to get Beth. Everybody ran to try to help her, and we managed to pull her away and kill the walker. I went and looked for Carol while some of the others followed Hershel. I found her in the RV, but she wanted to be alone, so I just regrouped with Daryl.

"Daryl!" I ran and instantly hugged him crying into his chest.

"Shh. Did you find Carol?"

"She's in the RV, but she wanted to be alone."

"I'm gonna go see if she's okay in a minute."

"Sophia shouldn't be dead Daryl." I sobbed.

"I know. We can't change it though."

"I can't imagine what Carol is feeling right now."

"You lost Karmin. I kinda feel like you can relate."

"No Daryl... I can't understand because she had the hope that Sophia was still alive. I knew Karmin wouldn't make it, I saw the wound on her, but Carol... No... people kept telling her Sophia was fine."

"I get it... I'm gonna go be with her for right now." I went over to the barn to help get the bodies moved. Shane pulled the truck up a few minutes after I showed up. I walked over to him and slapped him.

"Shane. You're an ass... If we need to leave I swear I am going to-"

"You're going to what? Kill me? You couldn't do it. I know you Kristyn."

"You know nothing about me Shane. Nothing. You don't know what I have had to do. I had to shoot my own mother, I don't think I would have much of an issue shooting an asshole like you!"

"You had no problem helping me shoot down those walkers and taking your gun back!"

"I was protecting the people I care about! If we didn't Shane there was no way you would have gotten all of them yourself! We would have all died!" I then walked away from him, not bothering to listen to him yell what he did.

I walked to the RV to see Daryl and Carol sitting in silence.

I could see Carol felt like shit. A while later Lori came in and told us that the graves were ready.

"I'm not coming. Why should I?" Carol asked us.

"'Cause that's your little girl."

"It's not my little girl."

We weren't going to argue much with her, there wasn't much of a point. We all went to the funeral and we started to work on moving the rest of the bodies when it was over.. Carol wasn't in the RV when we went back and checked. I figured that she was grieving on her own somewhere, so I wasn't going to go bother her. I just helped drag a few bodies over to the truck. I got a few dirty looks from Shane and Daryl took notice and we walked away.

"What happened?"

"I confronted Shane about all of this."

"What else?"

"I slapped him..."

"Kristyn..."

" And I threatened him... and he told me I wouldn't have the guts, I told him I could. That if I could shoot my own mother, father and sister that I would have no problem shooting and asshole like him. It all happened so fast..."

"He won't bother you... He knows I'll kill him if he goes near you. That doesn't mean you should have went to him about it. It wasn't all him."

"Most of us did it because of his stupidity... I did it to protect you and Carl and Carol... not to help Shane..."

Lori came running over. "Kristyn! It's Beth, we need help."

"What happened?"

"She just collapsed."

"Where's Hershel? Shouldn't he know what to do? I have no idea how to handle these things."

"He's gone. We just need help figuring out what happened."

Today just doesn't get any better does it?

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**I feel like this chapter kinda sucked :/ IDK though maybe it's better than I think? Lol sorry this took super duper long to put up and stuff, but I was watching Hansel and Gretel and Once Upon A Time :))))) LOVE! Anyway enjoy this chapter I guess :3  
**


	19. Beth

**Already almost up to 20 Chapters :) and 2000 views XD thank you to everyone who is reading this story! Sadly this weekend I will be away and there will be no internet where I will be... so no updates... but I will post as many as I can tonight to make up for it! That also gives me an excuse to drink lots and lots of caffine to stay awake :D Seriously... I stay up until like 3 a.m. writing two or three chapters... ALSO! Some of you may have noticed that Kristyn has gone from a somewhat tough girl to a mild girly girl :P well I can explain that. Before Karmin died she had someone she HAD to be tough for. But now that Karmin is gone and Daryl is taking care of her, she doesn't have to be that tough anymore :P lol anyways hope you enjoy :3**

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I went in right away. I noticed that Glenn and Rick were gone, because they weren't anywhere to be seen outside or in.

"Where did Rick and Glenn go."

"To find Hershel. They left before Beth collapsed though, so hopefully they bring him back soon." Lori informed me.

Beth was pale and her heart was racing. She was in shock, which didn't surprise me. With everything she had went through today. She had her father's belief, that the walkers were just sick. She found that out today, saw her 'sick' mother and brother get shot down, and on top of that her 'sick' mother attacked her. Honestly I probably would be in shock too. The only issue now is how to take care of it. Hershel is the only one who would have any clue as how to handle this.

A few hours past, two or three, and Hershel, Rick, and Glenn weren't back yet. Lori went out to ask Daryl if he would go, which I didn't like, but it was better than Lori going herself. She never came back in so I just assumed that she was out in her tent or something. I sat in the house and Helped Carol make dinner.

We were eating, and everyone noticed that Lori wasn't there, so I volunteered to go and ask Daryl about it. He, well we, moved a little further away from the group.

"What's up? Why aren't you in with us?"

"Why would I be?"

"We're eating dinner."

"I got plenty out here." I look around and see that he has a bunch of squirrels hanging around.

"Whatever. That's not why I'm here. Do you know where Lori is?"

"She came and asked me to go look for Rick and Glenn. Dumb bitch must have gone herself."

"Dammit... Daryl... you could have said something to us."

"I ain't her babysitter."

"Whatever... I'll come back out in a little bit."

"I'll be here."

I went back in the house to tell everyone... Carl will freak out...

"Guys, Lori went out to find them."

There was quite the discussion about how we should go about it, because she had gone out a few hours before that we figured she was at the bar they thought Hershel was at or lost. Shane decided to go look for her and came back with her in about half an hour.

"What happened?"

"She got in a car accident. Was looking at the map and hit a walker."

Dale took her and checked her. For the night there wasn't much we could do for Beth except take care of her dehydration. Patricia set her up with an I.V. and we all went our own ways.

"Lori's back." I told Daryl as I walked up on him.

"Who went to get her?"

"Shane."

"Figures..."

I rolled my eyes and went into the tent to change into my pajamas and go to sleep. Daryl came in a laid down next to me. We just went to sleep, exhausted from that long, long day.

We woke up in the morning pretty early. I got dressed and put on a pair of denim shorts, a red tank top, and a pair of sandals.

I went up to the house just in time to see a truck driving up the road. It parked right by the house and Rick, Glenn, and Hershel got out of the truck. Lori and Carl ran over to Rick, and Maggie looked like she was running up to her dad, but ended up going to Glenn.

Rick asked Lori what had happened, and she and Shane had explained it to him.

"Who's that in the back?" T-Dog asked Rick.

"That's Randall. He fell off a roof and his group left him for dead. He would have bled out... if he lived that long."

There was a fit about that. If he got out, he would go to his group and lead them to the farm...

"He was blindfolded all the way here."

"What if his people are looking for him? What then?" Shane asked.

"They abandoned him. They left him for dead. I don't think anyone is looking for him." Rick reassured him, but I knew Shane didn't care what Rick had to say.

They were still arguing.

"Listen. He needs surgery now or he will bleed out for sure. Let's take care of that before we argue about this."

"Yeah... Hershel, you might want to go check on Beth first." I told him

"What's wrong with Beth?"

"She... uh.. She's kinda in shock. She just collapsed in the kitchen right after you disappeared."

Hershel was feeling pretty guilty for not being there, but we told him we made sure she didn't get dehydrated, since that was the best we could do. Once he sedated her, he was trying to make her body not work too hard, he went and did the surgery on Randall.

"It will be at least a week before he is up. By that point we will take him somewhere, give him some supplies and cut him loose."

"And what if he brings his people here huh? We all know how this should be handled." Shane said.

I went inside to sit by Beth. She was still out, but no one was sitting with her, so I thought I would since I had nothing better to do. I was sitting reading a book for about four hours (I loved reading before the apocalypse, I just didn't get as much time for it after it happened)and then I was about to go to sleep... until I heard a slight moan escape her mouth.

"Beth? Beth, are you okay?

"Mo-mom?" She said weakly.

* * *

**Crappy title... again :P  
**


	20. Best Day

"No, Beth, its Kristyn."

"Where's mom?"

"Beth... I'm sorry." She started to cry a little.

"Is my dad back?"

"Yeah, you want me to go get him?" She nodded and I went. I told him she woke up and that he needed to go see her. I let them be alone and went outside and went to Daryl.

"Beth is awake now."

"That's good."

"Okay, what's up? Why are you so... distant? You move our tent from near the group to far away, and now you just... I don't know... kinda blow me off."

"Don't know what you're talkin' about."

"You just did it again... You just let Lori go to get Rick. You didn't even tell anyo-" I was cut off by a kiss.

He pulled away. "I am not here to protect them. I need to protect you. You're the only one I care about, the only reason I haven't left this group yet."

"That doesn't explain why you have been blowing me off..."

"I haven't been tryin' to... It's just how I am sometimes..." He was right... he was always somewhat distant.

We didn't have anything that we HAD to do that day. We were all just sitting around doing nothing. Without having to look for Sophia we had nothing else to do. Honestly... it was boring... everyone sitting around. Of course I had to help with laundry, but that was only about an hours worth of work.

After about three days I went to Daryl and told him I was going for a walk.

"Not alone. What if a walker finds its way onto the property? What are you gonna do? Nope... I'm going with."

"Lordy! Fine, I won't complain about you coming with! I was going to ask you to come..."

"Oh... well. Let's go." He grabbed a few knives and we went.

When we were far enough away from the camp I asked, "Daryl? Did you really mean what you said?"

"When?"

"You said that I'm the only reason you haven't left the group."

"Yeah I meant it. Since when do I say things I don't mean?"

"There's one time that stands out Daryl..."

"Oh really? When?"

"Think really, REALLY hard."

"I don't know... Just tell me."

" 'Yeah, you took care of them all right... That's why they're all dead right.' " I said mocking his voice.

"Alright... You got me."

"I have a good memory. You clearly don't though."

"My memory's just fine." He said while lightly shoving me to the side. I pushed him back a little harder, causing him to fall. "HEY!"

I laughed and sat down by him. "This is nice."

"What?"

"Just walking having fun. None of my previous boyfriends has ever done this with me."

"I don't believe that. Before this there must have been one guy."

"Nope. There was only one guy who would have, but he was cheating on me with another girl within 3 days."

"How did you manage to find out that soon?"

"He was putting pictures of him and her making out on Facebook... He wasn't the brightest guy."

"Yeah... any guy that would have cheated on you would have been an idiot.''

"Shut up." I laughed. "You're such a kiss-ass!"

"IT'S TRUE!"

"Trust me, no it isn't. I used to be such a bitch."

"Don't believe it. You're too much of a... goody-goody. Anyways, you're only nineteen, what were you? The high school bully?"

"I'm not nineteen anymore... I'm twenty." I laughed. "Just trust me. I was a bitch. That's the past though, this is now and I'm glad to be a goody-goody.

Do you think we'll ever have to leave here, Daryl?"

"We may have to go, maybe because of Shane still, unless Rick talked Hershel out of it. Or if the place gets overrun by walkers, that would be a reason to go too."

"I hope we don't have to go. It's kinda nice just getting to sit around and do nothing."

"Its kinda boring."

"I'd rather be bored as hell than at risk out there.''

"That's a good point I guess."

"Maybe Hershel will just make Shane leave. I wouldn't mind that."

"I think half of the group wouldn't mind that."

"Maybe. I don't think Rick will let Hershel make him leave though. I honestly believe that if Hershel says only Shane has to go that Rick will have us all leave, and I don't think I am THAT loyal to this group to risk a safe place."

"I already said I would leave if you weren't here. This group is broken. They don't know what they are doing anymore.''

"I know. We should head back." I said. He stood up and helped me to my feet. I got on my tip-toes and kissed him. "This was nice. We should do this more often."

He chuckled. "Hop on."

"What?"

"I'll carry you back. Get on my back." I was hesitant. "The offer ain't gonna last forever."

I laughed and jumped on his back. We were about halfway back and he still wasn't tired. "You don't need to carry me all the way Daryl."

"I know, but I want to so I'm gonna do it."

"Fine. Just drop me if you don't wanna carry me anymore." We got back and everyone was in the house eating so we just walked in, me still on his back. We got to the dining room area and he dropped me. We sat down, ate, I helped clean up, then we went to bed. Best. Day. Ever.


	21. Awkward Kitchen Duty

**This has to be my last update, and it is going to be super duper small... I am leaving in about 40 minutes and just woke up, so I need to make it snappy. I will come back later and fix all grammar fails though... enjoy**

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The rest of the week past with nothing more interesting than Daryl and me taking a few more walks. Randal could finally be up, which meant we could get rid of him. Rick and Shane offered to take him to a place where he would have a chance, about 18 miles out. In the meantime I was helping take care of Beth, feed her and talk to her to keep her sane. So really this week picked up a little bit, but not much. Lori, Maggie and I were in the kitchen and they were talking about something, but I was just sitting around, being awesome me, until Lori leaves to take Beth her food.

"Maggie. You're exhausted. You need to go sleep."

"No. I can't. There's way too much to be done." She said while walking toward the door.

"And she's gone... What to do?..." I said with a sigh.

Lori came back down in a few minutes, but just did the dishes silently. I was kinda just invisible to some of the group, really it was just me and Daryl in a group and we managed to get to Hershel's. I didn't mind though... honestly I didn't like the spotlight on me, but some talking was nice.

Lori went back up to get the tray from Beth and came back down with everything, except the knife.

"Lori..."

"Yeah Kristyn?"

"Where's the knife?"

"Oh god..." She said while running toward the stairs.

Things just got interesting like I wanted... but it totally took a different turn.

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**So yeah.. short chapter I know... but like i said i need to leave! SORRY! I LOVE YOU GUYS! XOXOXO **

**~SCK**


	22. Suicidal

I would have taken boredom over this. Beth wanted to kill herself. Why? I mean, I understand she saw her brother and her mother get shot down, but still…

Lori came down with the knife and set it in the sink and ran outside. I went up by Beth to see what was wrong, why she wanted to kill herself.

"Beth…. Sweetie, why? Why would you want to do this to your family?"

"Don't call me sweetie. You're the same age as me. And how do you know that I wanted to kill myself?"

"What other reason would you have for keeping a knife hidden?"

"There are many reasons…"

"Name one other than killing yourself."

"Well… Uhh… There's… I don't know. Kristyn, why do we keep going?"

"What?"

"Why do we keep living in this. We all know we will end up the same way. Dead… A 'walker' as your group calls them."

"Beth… You can't be thinking like that!"

"Why? It's true."

Maggie came running up the stairs.

"BETH!? What were you thinking? What do you think dad will do if he finds out?! Kristyn, please excuse us."

I went downstairs into the kitchen and washed up the few dishes there were. Lori was in there, looking worried- not just for Beth, but for her husband as well who had left to get Randall out of here. We heard Maggie screaming at Beth. Poor girl… but she somewhat had it coming… trying to kill herself and all…

"Where's Hershel?" Andrea said breaking the silence.

"Maggie didn't want him to find out yet. It's a family affair. Let them work it out."

"That's working it out?"

"When Beth stops fighting then it will be time to worry."

"This could have been handled better."

"How so?" I asked Andrea. I knew exactly where she was going with it…

"You shouldn't have taken the knife away." Andrea said with a sigh.

"What?"

"Excuse me?" Lori said, surprised.

"You were wrong, Lori. Like Dale taking my Gun. It wasn't your choice. She has to choose to live on her own. She has to find her own reasons."

"You want me to tie a noose for her?"

"If she's serious she'll figure out a way."

"That doesn't mean I can't stop her or show her I care."

"That has nothing to do with it Lori. She only has so many choices in front of her, and she believes the best one is suicide."

"That's not an option."

"Of course it is. She doesn't need to be yelled at or treated like a child. Kristyn, what do you think?"

"Neither of you is fully correct. It wasn't Lori's choice, but she did it because she cares about Beth and wanted to help her make the right choice."

"She needs a loaded gun right? You'll understand if I don't send you in there."

"I came through it."

"And became such a productive member of the group. Let Maggie handle this her way."

"I contribute. I help keep this place safe."

"The men can handle this on their own. They don't need your help."

"I'm sorry what would you have me do?"

"Andrea… There is plenty of work to go around." I said.

"Stay out of it Kristyn."

"Don't you dare tell me to stay out of this. I help the women. I would rather be out with Daryl helping keep the camp safe, but I help the women, because this is just as important."

"Are you serious? Everything falls apart and you're both in my face over skipping laundry?"

"It puts a burden on the rest of us. On me, Carol and Kristyn and Patricia and Maggie. Cooking and cleaning and caring for Beth. And you… You don't care about anyone but yourself. You sit on that RV working on your tan with a shotgun on your lap."

"I am on watch against walkers. That is what matters, not fresh mint leaves in the lemonade."

"And we are providing stability. We are trying to create a life worth living."

"Are you kidding me?"

"Look, I went after Rick. I took down two walkers."

"After crashing Maggie's car. Ever apologize for that?"

"Crashing her- You're insane."

I was just looking around awkwardly sitting on the counter eating some cucumber pieces, wishing the conversation was over.

"No, you are. And you're the one who's self-centered, the way you take it all for granted.''

"My husband is out there for the hundredth time. My son was shot. Don't you dare tell me that I take this for granted.''

"You don't get it do you? Your husband came back from the dead, your son, too. And now you've got a baby on the way. The rest of us have piled up our losses- me, Kristyn, Carol, Beth- but you just keep on keeping on."

"We have all suffered."

"Playing house, acting like the queen bee," Andrea continued, "laying down rules for everyone but yourself. You know what? Go ahead. Go in there and tell that little girl everything's gonna be okay, just like it is for you. She'll get a husband , a son, baby, boyfriend. She just has to look on the bright side." She said before walking out. I followed her, leaving Lori to herself.

"Andrea you are a bitch. How dare you do that to her."

"You know I'm right."

"You had your points, but so did Lori, and in the end Lori was right and you are wrong."

"That was Beth's choice. Not Lori's. If Dale hadn't taken my gun-"

"But he did, and he saved your ass and you haven't ONCE been grateful. You just blow him off."

"Don't tell me how I treat Dale. That is OUR relationship, not yours."

"Whatever." I saw Daryl walking over. "Hey." I said while walking over to him to hug him.

"What's goin' on."

"Beth. She tried to kill herself."

"Someone stopped her right?" I nodded. "Good, the last thing we need is another death." I looked at Andrea and saw her look down.

I leaned up and kissed Daryl. I pulled away and looked at her again. "Oh you're still here?"

I grabbed Daryl's hand and we walked away.

"So what's up?" Daryl asked.

"She was telling Lori she shouldn't have taken the knife. Being a bitch, as usual."

'Yeah. Can we walk? I can't stand just sitting around."

"Sure."

"Listen… I need to know something."

"What is it?"

"Well the times we had sex… we didn't use condoms. So I need to know if you were on the pill, or if you could be pregnant or anything." I started to giggle. "What? I feel like this is a decent conversation to have.''

"Well, before all this happened, you know the walkers and such, the doctors had told me that I most likely wouldn't be able to have kids." I saw him look at me in relief, yet he had a sad look on his face.

"Doesn't that upset you?"

"It used to, but decided that if I had really wanted a child I could just adopt one, but now that this all happened I'm glad that I may not be able to. Bringing a child into this world… I don't know how Lori could do it. Why? Does it upset you?" I asked in an almost mocking tone.

"Kinda. I love you Kristyn, I would like to have a family with you."

"I love you too." I said with a smile and leaned up to kiss him. Daryl seemed like a hard ass, but you just needed to get to know him. "I hate to be a downer, but a baby… it's the most… dangerous thing that we could do in this world. And if we had to move around… that would be an issue. Maybe someday…" Daryl never seemed like the type who would want a child… ever.

"Maybe. We should head back, see if Rick and Shane are back." I nodded and we walked back. We saw Rick and Shane… and Randall…

"Why you still got him?" Daryl yelled out.

"The place was overrun by walkers. We couldn't just leave him there. We will find a new place, or… take care of it.'' I knew exactly what that meant… he was going to kill Randall.

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**I didn't know how to end this chapter so I just ended it here…. Sorry I was gone all weekend :3 I know that this chapter has some fluff :3 muhahahaha fluff :D lol some people may go "Daryl would never say that blah blah blah" but I don't care :P**


	23. Execution

**There, a super long chapter that took me forever (Because I was doing this word for word from the show. Well except the parts that weren't in the show :P) I feel like this can make up for my weekend of absence! **

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I understood why they had to kill Randall. If he got out he could get to his group and lead them to us… kill us. Or he could try to do the job on his own. It had to be done, but that doesn't mean I wasn't conflicted about it. Taking a human's life… it wasn't right before, and it wasn't right then. I just didn't know what to think about it.

"He knows where the farm is. It's really the only option." Shane said.

"How does he know? Thought you had him blindfolded on your way here." Daryl asked him.

"He went to school with Maggie and lived in the area."

"So he knows how to get around in this town. He will be able to find his way back to his group easily." I said.

"Exactly."

"We do what's best for the group. That's the only option. If that means killing him that's how it has to be."

"Daryl, in the morning would you mind having a… conversation with him?'' Rick asked.

"Rick, you could at least call it what it is… you want Daryl to torture him. Don't try to sweeten it up, make it seem not that bad… and do it yo-" I said.

"It's fine. I will Rick." Daryl interrupted, causing me to look at him in confusion.

"What? Daryl you can't! Rick you do it! You brought him here in the first place!"

"Kristyn… I'll do it. It's fine." I looked at him one more time and walked away to get into my Hummer. Why would he do it? I locked myself in, not intending on coming out. I changed into my pajama's (Pink plaid shorts with a white tank top).Then heard knocks. Even though I had no intention of going out of the hummer I opened the door. It was Daryl… who else would it have been? "What?" I asked him angrily.

"I know you're mad about this but-"

"No… Rick has something he needs done, but oh no…. God forbid if he does it himself. Nope, you have to be the bad guy. Rick needs to grow a pair and do this shit himself."

"Rick does a lot more for this camp than you think Kristyn."

"Like what? The only things I can think of is him going to get Hershel, and going to get rid of Randall, who was brought here by Rick. You could have manned up and said no for once. You aren't his henchman…"

"I know, but he wouldn't have been able to handle doing that to someone."

"And you can…. Because you're Daryl Dixon and you don't care about anyone, right?" He looked at me surprised. "You know what? Go ahead, torture Randall. It will only prove my point."

"I'm doing it to protect you."

"Shut up. You're an asshole. 'I'm doing it to protect you.' Rick could do it to protect his family, but no… he can't do it himself…. Just go…"

"Kristyn, can we talk about this?"

"Just. Go." I jumped in and he slammed the door for me. I laid down and cried. That was the biggest fight we had… and we weren't even going to solve it that night. I regretted yelling at him over it eventually that night. Of course I did… because I cared about him and didn't want him to be hurt.

I eventually decided to go and apologize for this all. I jumped out of the Hummer and walked over and opened the tent. "Daryl?"

He sat up. "What is it?" He asked in an angry tone. "I'm tryin' to sleep…"

"I'm sorry."

"Just get outta here."

I went back to the Hummer and cried myself to sleep.

I woke up, quickly got dressed (Black, ripped skinny jeans and a red tank top with some boots) and saw him walking toward the barn they had put Randall in. I ran up to him before he was too far away.

"Daryl, please talk to me!"

"Why? I'm goin' to do what I need to do."

"Because I'm trying to apologize!"

"Like I was last night. I'm ignoring it just like you did."

"Daryl… Never mind… be like that…" I said as I started to walk away, but changed my mind. "I was acting childish! I'm admitting that! I made a mistake…"

He started to walk away, but I ran in front of him and hugged him. "I'm sorry. I was an idiot. But I can't lose you over something so… stupid."

"Can we talk about it a little later? After I do this?" He said while hugging me back.

"Sure… don't be too rough with him…"

He walked away and I went back to the camp. We all just sat and ate breakfast in silence. Until Lori asked Rick a question.

"So what are you gonna do? We'd all feel better if we knew the plan.''

"Is there a plan?" Andrea asked.

"Are we going to just keep him here?" Glenn asked. No one but Shane, Rick, Daryl and me knew what was really most likely going to happen.

In response Rick simply said, "We'll know soon enough." Daryl was then approaching

"Boy there's got a gang, thirty men. They got heavy artillery and they ain't lookin' to make friends. They roll through here, our boys are dead… and our women, they're gonna wish they were.''

"What did you do?" Carol asked Daryl.

"We had a little chat."

"No one goes near this guy." Rick told us.

I started to walk toward Daryl, who had walked away toward out small camp. I walked up and saw him cleaning his knuckles.

"Kristyn… The things he told me about his group… I can't let that happen to you…"

"I know… I know."

"You don't know. He told me that they just go up to random camps and if there's women in them-" He stopped when he saw Carl walk up to us.

"Hey bud, what's up?" I asked him.

"Did it hurt?" Carl asked causing me and Daryl to look up in shock.

"What?" Daryl asked in response, hoping the boy would drop it.

"Punching the guy. Did it hurt?"

"No."

"Oh. Hey could you teach me how to shoot your crossbow?"

"Your arms are too short."

"No they're not!"

"Don't you have someone else to bother?" Daryl asked him, making Carl look around and then walk away.

"That was a little harsh." I told him.

"We were talking. About last night… I know I just pushed you out… but what you did…. It hurt Kristyn…"

"I'm sorry. I was just being a bitch… Just put me in my place next time… call me a bitch. I don't want to fight like that again Daryl…"

Later on in the day Daryl decided to go hunt, so I was basically going to be sitting around doing nothing. I gave Daryl a kiss and hug and left to go see what people were up to. I passed Dale who was walking toward Daryl. I just let him go though. I just found people sitting around, doing nothing, so I went into the RV and grabbed a book. They all sucked, but it was all I had. I should have brought all of mine, but at the time there wasn't any time for reading. I decided to go sit in a field and read. I got about four chapters in when I heard something walk toward me. I pulled out a knife I had brought (I always bring one with me… just in case) but saw that it was Dale and not a walker, so I just put it back.

"Kristyn, you need to change your mind on this."

"What?"

"Randall."

"What makes you think I've already decided?"

"Okay, what do you think is the right choice?"

"Dale…"

"Be honest. I want to know."

"I think he's a threat… Daryl told me what his group would do if they found us… If we can avoid it then we have to do whatever it takes."

"We don't even know if he will go to them!"

"We can't risk it. Dale… there isn't a point in arguing with me, I've made up my mind on this."

"Really? Because from what I heard people say, you didn't want Randall to be tortured."

"Correction: I didn't want DARYL to do it. It had to be done. We had no choice on that. But I didn't want Daryl to be the one to do it."

"So you don't care? You seem like you're conflicted about all of this!"

"Dale, I am… I think we all are, but things have changed, people are desperate, they will kill anyone just to get what they want. They are going to do whatever is necessary to protect us all. If killing Randall is how it is done then so be it." I said. I got up and walked away from him. I went back to mine and Daryl's little camp and sat and waited for him to be back. When he finally walked back he had a few squirrels slung on a rope around his shoulder.

"Dale talk to ya yet?"

"Yeah. He wants Randall to live…"

"He try to change your mind?" He asked as he put his bow and other things down.

"Yep.''

"Did it work."

"Nope."

"That's what I thought." Daryl and I sat around, he ate his squirrel and I just sat. We walked back to the rest of the group and they told us that they wanted us to have a meeting about Randall right before the sun went down.

When the time came, we all went into the house to discuss it.

It was awkward for about a minute, until Glenn broke the silence. "So how do we do this? Just take a vote?"

"Does it have to be unanimous?" Andrea asked.

"How about majority rules?" Lori questioned.

"Let's just see where everybody stands, then we can talk through the options." Rick said.

Shane cut in, "The way I see it, there's only one way to move forward."

"Killing him, right?" Dale blurted out. "Why even bother to take a vote, it's pretty clear which way the wind's blowing."

"If people believe we should spare him I want to now."

"It's a small group… maybe just me and Glenn." Glenn looked up at him with a somewhat apologetic look on his face.

"Look, I think you're pretty much right about everything, all the time, but this-"

"They've got you scared!"

"He's not one of us! And we've- we've lost too many people already.''

"How about you?" Dale said pointing to Maggie. "Do you agree with this?"

"Couldn't we continue keeping him prisoner?''

"Just another mouth to feed." Daryl said.

"It may be a lean winter." Hershel cut in.

"We could ration better."

"More than we already are, Lori?" I asked her.

"He could be an asset." Dale said. "Give him a chance to prove himself."

"Put him to work." Glenn said.

"Just let him walk around? I wouldn't feel okay with that." I said.

"We're not letting him walk around." Rick said.

"We could put an escort on him." Maggie said.

"Who wants to volunteer for that duty?" Shane asked.

"I will."

"I don't think any of us should be walking around with this guy."

"Rick's right. I wouldn't feel safe unless he was tied up."

"We can't exactly put chains around his ankles and sentence him to hard labor.''

"Look," Shane cut in, "Say we let him join us, right? Maybe he's helpful, maybe he's nice. We let our guard down maybe he runs off and brings back his thirty men."

"So the answer is to kill him to prevent a crime he may never even attempt? If we do this, we're saying there's no hope. Rule of law is dead. There is no civilization."

"Could you drive him further out? Leave him like you planned?" Hershel suggested.

"You barely came back this time. There are walkers, you could break down. You could get lost."

"Or get ambushed." Daryl added.

"We can't put our own people at risk." I said.

"If you go through with it," Patricia started, '' how would you do it? Would he suffer?"

"You could hang him, right? Just snap his neck." Shane suggested.

"No I thought about that. Shooting is more humane.''

"What about the body? Do we bury him?" T-Dog asked.

"Hold on! You're talking about this as though it's already been decided!''

"You've been talking all day. Going around in circles. You just wanna go around in circles again?" Daryl asked Dale.

''This is a young man's life! It is worth more than a five-minute conversation! Is this what it's come to? We kill someone because we can't decide what else to do with him? You save him… and now look at us. He's been tortured. He's gonna be executed. How are we any better than those people that we're so afraid of?" Everyone started to look around, somewhat ashamed… except Shane.

"We all know what needs to be done.''

"No, Dale is right. We can't leave any stone unturned here. We have a responsibility-"

"So what's the other solution?" Andrea cut in.

"Let Rick finish."

"We haven't come up with a single viable option yet. I wish we could."

"So let's work on it!"

"We are."

"Stop it," Carol cut in, "Just stop it. I'm sick of everybody arguing and fighting. I didn't ask for this. You can't ask us to decide something like this. Please decide- Either of you, both of you. But leave me out of it.''

"Not speaking out, or killing him yourself," Dale said to Carol, "There's no difference.''

"That's enough. Anybody who wants the floor before we make a final decision has the chance.''

Nobody said anything for a minute until Dale broke the silence. "You once said that we don't kill the living."

"That was before the living tried to kill us.''

"But don't you see? If we do this, the people we were, the world we knew is dead. This new world is ugly, it's harsh. It's survival of the fittest. And that's a world I don't want to live in. And I don't believe any of you do. I can't. Please, let's just do what's right…." Insert long silence here… "isn't there anybody who is going to stand with me?''

"He's right." Andrea said. "We should try to find another way.''

"Anybody else?" Rick asked us.

I looked up at Daryl and saw him looking at Rick. He knew how this had to be, how it would have to go for Randall. I knew it too. It was the world we were in though.''

Another very, very long silence, until I saw Rick motion his head in a way that said "Sorry you lose."

"Are y'all gonna watch too?" Dale asked us. "No you're gonna go hide in your tents and try to forget that we're slaughtering a human being. I won't be a party to it." He said as he began to walk out. He stopped by me and Daryl and said, "You're right, this group is broken.''

We decided that it should be done at night. Daryl didn't want me to come, but I had to prove Dale wrong… He said we were all going to go sit in our tents and pretend it wasn't happening… I'm not like that, and I had to prove him wrong.

We went out to the shed- Rick, Shane, Daryl and I- to get him.

"Where are we going?" He asked. We all just ignored him of course. Rick tied Randall's hands behind his back and we started to walk toward the barn.

"Wait, wait. Wait." Randall said with tears forming in his eyes.

"Put him there." Rick said, pointing to the middle of the barn.

"It's all gonna be over soon." Shane said while tying a blindfold over Randall.

"What? What's gonna be over soon?"

"Relax." Shane told him.

"Hey, no, no, no, no, no."

"Would you like to stand or kneel?"

"Oh no, please."

Daryl walked over and kicked him down to his knees.

"Do you have any final words?"

"No. Please." Randall cried out. "Please don't. Don't.''

Rick pointed the gun at Randall's head, cocked it, and was about to shoot… until he heard Carl.

"Do it, Dad. Do it.''

"Are you kidding me? What did I say to you?" I heard Shane say to Carl.

Rick put the gun down. "Take him away. Take him away."

"Get up." Daryl said as he pulled Randall up and towards the door. I followed instantly. It could have been over… could have just had peace again, not worrying about a stranger who could potentially have us killed.

"You're one lucky son of a bitch." Daryl told him while chaining him back up in the Shed.

Randall was still whimpering.

"Carl doesn't know how to listen anymore… he wants to grow up… but him telling his father to kill Randall… I mean we were planning on doing it of course, but a child wanting to watch? That is what's wrong with the world."

"It's sick…" Daryl said as we walked back to camp.

Then we heard the scream.

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**That was the best spot I could end the chapter on :P oh well you should know what happens next :P**


	24. Nightmare

**ERMERGERSH GUYS! I am sooo happy right now! Totally random, but I finally got the Daryl Dixon Funko Pop T.V. Figure! HE'S SO ADORABLE!**

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Daryl instantly bolted toward the field. I followed, unable to keep up right next to him, but managed to stay close enough to see where he was going. The agonizing screams grew more and more intense and were clearly a man's. It wasn't until we got close enough to see his partially bald head that we knew who it was. It was Dale… and there was a walker sitting on top of him tearing into his stomach. Daryl tackled and stabbed the walker while I ran to Dale's side.

"Hang on Dale! It's gonna be okay." I said with tears forming in my eyes.

"OVER HERE!" Daryl shouted. "Hold in there buddy!"

It was awful. His stomach was torn beyond repair. When the others arrived, I moved away from Dale's side and let Andrea kneel down by him. I went over to Daryl. He pulled me into his chest and I cried.

"HERSHEL!" Rick screamed out. When Hershel arrived and had seen what happened his face fell. "We have to get him to the house and operate now."

"He won't make the trip." I looked up at Hershel as he said it. I knew that it was hopeless to even try to operate, but it still seemed unreal.

"Then we'll do it here. Glenn get back to the hou-"

"Rick." Hershel said as he shook his head.

Rick looked around, tears filling his eyes. "He's suffering! Do something!" Andrea shouted toward Rick. Rick pulled out his gun, about to pull the trigger. I could see that he couldn't do it. Daryl pushed me away gently and went to Rick. He took the gun and said, "Sorry Brother." He then pulled the trigger, ending Dale's life.

We all stayed in the field, crying over our lost friend. He was a father figure to us. We didn't know what to do with the body at first. In the end we just moved it to an area somewhat close to the camp and covered it with a tarp.

"It's been a shitty day…" I said, tears streaming down my face slowly. We were walking back to our camp area.

Daryl slung an arm around my shoulder. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry, it isn't your fault."

"This morning was."

"Don't worry about it babe. It's mostly Dale that made today crappy. Don't worry about it, I'll be fine." We walked back slowly. The second we arrived I just collapsed down. I hardly had the energy to kick off my boots, let alone change my clothing all together, so I just slept in my jeans and tank top. The second we got comfortable, I fell asleep.

_I looked out the window of the house to see hundreds of walkers surrounding the farm. We were all sitting in the house, why I don't know, but we were told to stay put. Clearly we couldn't stay there, not with the walkers surrounding us. We had to do something, leave or shoot them all, but we all knew that we didn't have the ammunition to spare for that. Of course we tried to do so. I ran and got in my hummer, which was right by the door, along with all the other vehicles, and started to try to shoot down every walker I saw while driving. That wasn't working so I had to park to shoot. It was going all good at first, until I ran out of ammo and lost the advantage. They were surrounding me, reaching into my window trying to grab me. I hit the gas to push them away from me a little and I rolled up the window and started to drive away from the farm. I was looking for Daryl before leaving, but saw no sign of him anywhere. I had to leave that second or I wouldn't get out. The farm belonged to the walkers._

I woke up sweating. Daryl was staring at me in confusion.

"Bad dream?" He asked with a slight smile on his face.

"The worst… The farm was taken over by walkers and I couldn't find you and I was so scared and I didn't know what to do so I left." I said so fast I could hardly understand it.

"Slow down a little bit."

"The farm was surrounded by walkers and I couldn't find you and I was freaking out and I didn't know what to do, so I just left." I said slowly.

"Just like you will if that ever happens." He told me, causing me to give him a very confused look . "Like I said, go and assume I'm fine.''

''Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know…''

Rick and Shane had already dug the hole for Dale's body. We did the funeral and all stayed together after that. Well, until Daryl, Shane, Andrea, and T-Dog went to search the property for more walkers. If there was one there could easily have been more. Hershel wanted us all to move into the house, meaning he was letting us stay forever if we wanted. We started to move all of our stuff into the house, but I left most of my things in my hummer… because those were my things MUAHAHAHA… I'm so selfish… really the only things I had were some family albums that I had, some clothes, and a few blankets that I left in there… just in case we had to get out fast. Otherwise me and Daryl had a few more blankets that I just piled in a corner of the living room, claiming it as ours. Hershel took the couch, giving Lori, Rick, and Carl his bedroom saying it wasn't right for him to have a bed to himself while a pregnant woman and child were sleeping on the floor. While we were still getting the inside situated, Daryl went to the shed to fix the roof thingy that I don't know the word for. It only took him about thirty minutes though.

When Daryl got back I went to him, but was beat by Rick, who was walking with him.

"Listen, we need to get rid of Randall." Rick said just as I walked up and hugged Daryl.

''You want me to go with you? Right?" Rick nodded. "Why not Shane?"

"Shane's just… off right now. He wants us to kill Randall so the second I turn my back he'll shoot the kid." Rick told him.

I looked up at Daryl sadly. I didn't want him to go.

"Can you let me and Kristyn talk about it?" Rick nodded and walked away.

''You know what could happen… you could get lost, or you could get attacked by walkers, or you could get ambushed… ''

"I know… But this isn't somethin' Rick can do alone… and I'm with him on the Shane thing… he would just shoot the kid."

"It's what we were going to do… what would be so different about it now?"

"We're tryin' to give the kid a chance. I promise I'll come back."

''Daryl…" He looked at me with that face that said 'do I ever fail?' and of course he doesn't fail… he's Daryl. "Fine." I said. I started to giggle a few seconds after I said it.

"What?" He said with a laugh.

"Why were you asking my permission? We aren't married or anything, I don't control you."

"One, yes you kinda do control me. Two, if I don't ask for your permission you get pissed off. And three, we're basically as close to married as people come in this world."

''I guess. '' I said giggling. "Oh, my gosh Daryl… Where's the ring?" I said in a mock-spoiled girl voice.

About an hour later Rick and Daryl were preparing to leave. I gave Daryl a hug and went inside and sat on the couch worried. Until I heard T-Dog shout from outside.

"He isn't here! He got out!"

Well shit…

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**I wasn't quite sure how to end this one, but I need to get to bed. If there isn't an update for a while forgive me. that would just mean that My internet ran out (Because we have limited -_- I honestly don't get it... we have a limited amount, but I'm trying to get the unlimited if possible, so i can update a whole bunch. maybe i won't run out though :3**


	25. Nightmare Come True

**VEEERY long chapter... I just thought it would be dumb to end it half way through the last episode thing... lol oh well :P Oh and I named it nightmare come true because... dream come true... blah blah blah i'm stupidly weird sometimes and can't think of a good title... don't judge me.. lol**

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We were all looking around the shed to see if there was any possible way Randall could have escaped it.

"The cuffs are still hooked." Rick informed us.

"Is that possible?" Carol asked him.

"It is if you have nothing to lose it is." Andrea told her.

"The door was secured from the outside."

"Then how'd he get out?" I asked. "Daryl fixed the roof earlier. Is there another hole he could have crawled out of?"

"No, I don't see anywh-"

"RICK!" We heard Shane yell out from the woods.

"What happened?" Lori called to him.

"He's armed! He's got my gun!"

"Are you okay?" Carl asked him. Shane's face was covered in blood that had to be from his nose.

"I'm fine. Little bastard just snuck up on me. Clocked me in the face."

"Hershel, T-Dog, get everybody back in the house. Glen, Daryl, come with us." Rick said quickly.

I looked up at Daryl, "Not you… why always you?" I said with a sigh.

"I ain't gonna let that little bastard get me." He said before he kissed my forehead. "Go and get in the house."

"Be safe…" I said. I went on my tip-toes and kissed him before he walked off toward Rick.

"T, give me that gun." Shane said.

"Just let him go. That was the plan, wasn't it? To just let him go?" Carol asked.

"The plan was to cut him loose far away from here, not on our front step with a gun.''

"Don't go out there! Y'all know what could happen!"

"Get everybody back in the house. Lock the doors and stay put!" Rick called out before entering the woods.

We all ran for the house. Once we were all in, we locked all the doors except for one, so they could come in when they got back.

People started to work around the house to get their mind off of things, but I just sat in my and Daryl's corner. By the time it was getting dark I started to worry.

"They should be back by now." I whispered, tears starting to stream down my face.

"Listen," Lori said while kneeling down by me, "I know what you're going through right now. Maggie does, too. But they'll come back. They always do."

"It's dark… they shouldn't have taken this long… I'm going to go find them…"

"Kristyn… no, you know Daryl wouldn't like that." And she was right… I slumped my head back against the wall and sighed in defeat.

"I'll go." Andrea said.

"They could be anywhere and if Randall comes back we'll need you." Lori told her.

We all heard a door open. Daryl and Glenn walked into the living room. I instantly jumped up and ran to Daryl. He pulled me close to him and didn't let me go.

"Rick and Shane ain't back yet?" He asked.

"No." Lori said.

"We heard a shot." Glenn said.

"Maybe they found Randall?" I half asked, half said.

"We found Randall." Daryl told me.

"Is he back in the shed?" Maggie asked him.

"He was a walker.''

"Did you find the walker that bit him?" Hershel asked.

"The weird thing is, he wasn't bit.''

I looked around. Did they really not know we all had it? I just assumed they knew… that's why I didn't say anything about it, but I still just kept my mouth shut and kept hugging Daryl.

"His neck was broke."

"So he fought back." Patricia said.

"The thing is, Shane and Randall's tracks were right on top of each other. And Shane ain't no tracker, so he didn't just come up behind him. They were together.

"Would you please get back out there and find Rick and Shane and find out what on earth is going on?" Lori asked Daryl, making me glare at her.

"You got it." Daryl said…. Of course… good guy Daryl, right?

''Thank you."

Daryl started to walk out the door, and I followed him. When he stopped I knew something was wrong. I looked out and saw hundreds of walkers surrounding the farm.

"Daryl." I said and he looked at me instantly. "This was my dream…"

"Well shit."

"Patricia, kill the lights." Hershel said. Patricia went in and shut the lights off.

"I'll get the guns." Andrea said.

"Maybe they'll just pass like the herd on the highway." Glenn said hopefully. "Should we just go inside?"

"Not unless there's a tunnel downstairs that I don't know about. Herd that size will rip the house down."

"Carl's gone!" Lori yelled.

"What? Where could he have gone?" I asked.

"He was upstairs but he isn't there."

"Maybe he's hiding." Glenn said, trying, but failing, to comfort her.

"He's supposed to be upstairs. I'm not leaving without my boy."

"We won't. we're gonna look again. We're gonna find him." Carol told her.

"So many." Glenn said. Thanks captain obvious…

Andrea brought out the bag of guns and Maggie started to pass them out.

"Maggie?" Glenn asked, somewhat confused.

"You group up country, you pick up a thing or two."

"They got the numbers. It's no use.'' Daryl said.

"You can go if you want.'' Hershel said.

"You gonna take 'em all on?"

"We have guns. We have cars.''

"Kill as many as we can, then we use the guns to lead the rest of them off the farm." Andrea said.

"You serious?"

"This is my farm. I'll die here." Hershel told Daryl.

"Alright. It's as good a night as any.'' Daryl said while jumping off the side of the porch. I ran down the stairs toward my hummer. "Kristyn, you can go. Get to the highway and wait for me." Daryl said.

"I'm not leaving you. I have a few guns and I'll be in my hummer. I'll be safe. You on the motorcycle though… I'm a little worried about that."

"I'll be fine. I won't be goin' down the middle of it." I leaned up and gave him a passionate kiss.

I pulled away and told him, "We meet at the highway. It doesn't matter if the others aren't there. That's where me and you go."

"You'd best be there."

"Don't worry babe, I got this." I kissed him one last time.

He nodded and got on his motorcycle and drove off. I jumped in the hummer and drove trying to shoot the walkers, but failing miserably. If I had had another person in the hummer that would have been easy, but that wasn't exactly available at the moment. I parked somewhat in the middle of all of it, but the second I stopped the barn set on fire. A lot of the walkers that had been coming toward me started to go toward the barn. Still there were a few of them coming toward me. By a few I mean thirty or forty. I wasn't going to be able to get all of them, but I tried, until my guns were both out of ammo. They surrounded me, reaching in the hummer trying to grab at me and pull me out. Tried to bite me, but I wasn't letting that happen… I stepped on the gas enough to get ahead of them and started to roll my window up. I started to drive looking for Daryl, but couldn't see him anywhere. It was exactly like my dream… which was very scary… I knew where he either was or was going to be. I started to drive toward the road, and saw two other cars driving around, still shooting. The further down the road I got the less walkers there were. I started to let my guard down a little bit… yeah… big mistake. There was one walker that was right in the middle of the road. Panicking, I swerved off the road and hit a tree. All I remember was that I hit my head against my steering wheel and seeing a lot of blood gushing down over my eyes. I am assuming that means the windshield shattered. Then I blacked out.

I woke up leaning against a man's back on a motorcycle.

"What the hell?!" I shouted while trying to get off, not knowing who was on the motorcycle. He stopped the motorcycle and allowed me to jump off. It took me until the man got off until I realized who it was.

"Jesus! Calm the fuck down!" Daryl shouted at me.

Despite the shitty feeling all over my body I ran up to him and jumped into his arms. He lifted me off the ground and held me tight. "Oh thank God you're alive! I couldn't find you and-"

"Thank God I'm alive? Did you see what happened back there?" He said while setting me down.

"All I know is I crashed and I got a nasty cut somewhere on my head. Other than that I just blacked out…''

"The hummer was pinned up against a tree."

"I swerved… there was a walker on the road and I panicked."

"Yeah… well your car didn't make it."

"Damn… I loved that car… It was like my baby… Shit… did you get any of the stuff out of the back?"

"Just the essentials. The blankets, the guns you had back there, but I also grabbed a few pictures out of some of the albums."

"Oh…"

"Sorry babe, I would have grabbed all of the pictures if I could have, but There wasn't enough room in the side bags.''

"It's fine. Thank you for grabbing the one's you did, because you didn't have to do that. But we need to get to the highway and see if anyone is there."

"Get on."

We started to drive down the road until we saw Shane's care driving down the road. Daryl got right up next to the car and Glenn, who was driving it, stopped. He rolled down the window so we could talk. In the car he had Maggie and Carol.

"T-Dog, Beth, and Lori are just up ahead, we found them not that long ago." Glenn told us.

"Rick and Shane?" Daryl asked.

"And Carl?" I added.

With a sad look on his face Glenn shook his head.

"We'll find 'em." Daryl said. "They couldn't have gotten far."

We got in front of T-Dog and Lori and led them all to the highway. We were going back to where we left supplies for Sophia, which were hopefully still there. We drove up and saw Rick, Hershel, and Carl. We all got out/jumped off of our vehicles and ran over to Rick and the others.

"Daryl, how'd you find everyone?" Rick asked.

"Well, ts guys' tail lights zigzagging all over the road- figured it had to be an Asian drivin' like that."

"Good one." Glenn retorted with a laugh.

"Where's the rest of us?"

''We're the only ones so far."

"Shane?" Lori asked. Rick merely shook his head in response.

"Andrea?" Glenn asked.

"She saved me and I lost her." Carol told him.

"We saw her go down." T-Dog added.

"Patricia?" Hershel asked.

"They got her too," Beth said, tears forming in her eyes. "Took her right from me… Took her right from me. I was holding onto her daddy. What about Jimmy? Did anyone see Jimmy?" Beth said through the sobs.

"He was in the RV when it got overrun." Rick told her.

Beth just curled into her father and cried.

"You're sure about Andrea?"

"There were walkers everywhere."

"Did you see her?"

"I'm gonna go back." Daryl said.

"No." Rick told him.

"Can't just leave her there."

"Daryl, we don't even know if she is there." I tld him while putting a hand on his shoulder.

"She isn't there, she isn't. She's either dead or somewhere else. There's no way to find her."

"So we're not even going to look for her?" Glenn asked.

''We've got to keep moving. There have been walkers crawling all over here.''

"I say head east." T-Dog said.

"Stay off the main roads. The bigger the road the more walkers, more assholes like this one. I got him." Daryl said pulling out his crossbow. He shot it down and we gathered the few supplies we had left for Sophia, and started to drive the opposite way on the highway. We left the blue truck, because it was basically out of gas by that point. So there wasn't point in bringing it.

We were driving, me and Daryl on the motorcycle; Glenn, Maggie, Hershel, Carol and Beth in Shane's green car; Rick, Carl, T-Dog, and Lori in the red truck. We were off the highway and on a small road. There was a honk we assumed was from Rick. I hopped off of the motorcycle and waited for Rick to come up by us.

"You out?" Daryl asked Rick.

"Running on fumes."

"We can't stay here." Maggie said.

"We can't all fit in one car. If we had the hummer… What happened to it?"

"Crashed it." Daryl told him. "She's lucky to be alive."

"Thanks Kristyn…" Glenn said.

"Kiss my ass, Glenn."

"We'll have to make a run for some gas in the morning." Rick said, breaking up the small argument that was about to happen.

"Spend the night here?" Carol asked.

"I'm freezing." Carl said. Rick walked over to him and gave Carl his coat.

"We'll build a fire, yeah?" Lori said.

"You go out looking for firewood, stay close." Daryl said to us all. "Only got so many arrows. How you doing on ammo?"

"Not enough." Rick replied.

"We can't just sit here with our asses hanging out." Maggie said.

"Watch your mouth.'' Hershel scolded. "Everyone stop panicking and listen to Rick."

"All right, we'll set up a perimeter. In the morning, we'll find gas and some supplies. We'll keep pushing on.''

"Glenn and I can go make a run now, try and scrounge up some gas." Maggie said.

"No, we stay together. God forbid something happens and people get stranded without a car.''

"Rick, we're stranded now.'' Glenn said. And he was right.

"I know it looks bad, we've all been through hell and worse, but at least we found each other. I wasn't sure- I really wasn't-but we did. We're together. We keep it that way. We'll find shelter somewhere, there's got to be a place.''

"Rick look around. Okay? There's walkers everywhere. They're migrating or something.''

"There's gotta be a place not just where we hole up, but that we fortify, hunker down, pull ourselves together, build a life for each other. I know it's out there, we just have to find it.''

"Even if we do find a place," Maggie said, "and we think it's safe, we can never be sure. For how long? Look what happened with the farm. We fooled ourselves into thinking that that was safe.''

"We won't make that mistake again." Hershel said.

''We'll make camp tonight over there, get on the road at the break of day.''

Carol walked over to Daryl and asked, "Does this feel right to you?"

"What if walkers come through, or another group like Randall's?" Beth asked.

"You know I found Randall, right? He had turned, but he wasn't bit."

"How's that possible?" Beth asked Rick.

"Rick, What the hell happened?'' Lori asked.

"Shane killed Randall, just like he always wanted to."

"And the herd got him?"

Rick was looking down at the ground, like he was ashamed or something.

"We're all infected." He said after the long silence. People were looking at him in shock.

"What?" Daryl asked.

''At the CDC, Jenner told me. Whatever it is, we all carry it."

"And you never said anything?" Carol asked.

"Would it have made a difference?"

"You knew this whole time?"

"How could I have known for sure? You saw how crazy that mo-"

"That is not your call." Glenn interrupted. "When I found out about the walkers in the barn, I told for the good of the group."

"Well, I thought it best that people didn't know."

"Uhhh guys…" I said causing everyone to look at me. "You can't just be mad at Rick…"

"What? Kristyn?" Daryl asked.

"I knew…"

"You told her Rick? But You didn't tell ev-" Glenn started.

"I found out on my own. Daryl, the morning my dad died, Karmin and I said there were no bites or scratches on him. We found out that we were all infected. We even hinted at it… we thought you caught on… And I thought you all knew about it…"

Rick walked away and I felt terrible for him. Being bombarded with this stuff.

"You could have hinted a little better…" Daryl said.

"Don't even Daryl… Karmin said there were no visible scratches or bites unless he was bit on the ass, which I did indeed check later when I put his body outside. We hinted just fine…"

"Whatever… we're not gonna fight over this." We all started to move some of our things over by the fire. I grabbed the three blankets that Daryl had grabbed out of my hummer.

T-Dog was on watch and the rest of us were sitting around the fire, trying to stay warm. I snuggled up to Daryl and offered to share the blanket, but he refused. Carol started to talk to Daryl.

"We're not safe with him- keeping something like that from us. Why do you need him? He's just gonna pull you down." Was Carol suggesting she and Daryl run away? It wouldn't have happened either way… Daryl knew where his best chance at survival was, and it just so happened it was with a group.

"No. Rick's done all right by me.''

"You're his henchman, and I'm a burden. We deserve better."

"What do you want?"

"A man of honor."

"Rick has honor."

Not even a minute later there was a rustling in the trees.

"What was that?" someone asked.

"Could be anything. Raccoon, possum."

"A walker." Glenn added.

"We need to leave… What are we waiting for?" Carol asked.

"Which way?" Glenn asked.

"It came from over there." Maggie said.

"Back from where we came." Beth said.

"Yeah.''

The last thing we need is for everyone to be running off in the dark." Rick said. "We don't have the vehicles. No one's traveling on foot."

"Don't panic." Hershel said reassuringly.

"I'm not sitting here waiting for another herd to blow through." Carol said. "We need to move, now."

"No one is going anywhere."

"Do something Rick." Carol said.

"I am doing something!" Rick whisper-yelled. "I'm keeping this group together, alive. I've been doing that all along, no matter what. I didn't ask for this. I killed my best friend for you people, for Christ's sake!" The look on Carl's face killed me a little inside. He had looked up to Shane, no matter how much of an asshole Shane had been. Shane was like a second father to Carl, and he was clearly hurt by the fact that his own father had killed him. "You saw what he was like, how he pushed me, how he compromised us, how he threatened us. He staged the whol Randall thing, led me out to put a bullet in my back. He gave me no choice. He was my best friend, but he came after me." Carl then turned into his mother and cried. "My hands are clean.

Maybe you people are better off without me. Go ahead." He said pointing off toward the road. "I say there's a place for us, but maybe- maybe it's just another pipe dream. Maybe-maybe I'm fooling myself again. Why don't you go find out yourself? Send me a postcard. Go on, there's the door. You can do better? Let's see how far you get. No takers? Fine. But get one thing straight- you're staying, this isn't a democracy anymore."

We all just looked at each other, not sure what to think of what Rick had just said. Of course no one was going to leave; they wouldn't make it a day without Rick… He was right… he kept us together. I curled into Daryl, just ready for this day to be over, and I knew that everyone else wanted it to be too.


	26. Moving On

**These chapters are going to be my own creation because you can tell the time distance between season 2 and 3 of the walking dead by the size of Lori's stomach, so I am guess it is AT LEAST a month or two… of course I'm not going to go into detail on every single day… maybe three or four chapters before I get to the first episode of the season three :D Also very short chapter tonight... Me and my mom are hanging out so I had to make this one quick... sorry no dialog... couldn't think of anything really.**

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We stayed the night there, someone on watch at all times. It was cold, but we managed with three small blankets Daryl got from my hummer. I gave one to Carl of course, I offered one to Rick and Lori, but they didn't want it, and then I gave it to Hershel and Beth. Then Daryl and I got one… because they were ours. We swapped out watch, Daryl going every few hours and Rick and T-Dog also swapped out. It was crappy that Daryl had to go on watch, because every time he got up, I woke up… I couldn't complain though because he had to stay up for an hour or two to just sit and watch for something that probably wouldn't have come anyways.

I woke up in the morning, refreshed from the day before. Things were made awkward because of Rick's speech that night… but it was a new day, a new start to finding somewhere else to stay. We didn't eat, trying to ration things more was difficult because at the farm, we could basically snack on veggies and fruit, and got decent portions for dinner. But here… nope… we only had what we left for Sophia… and it wasn't much. Just a box of cereal, which was stale, and some peanut butter with a few drinks. We ate all the food because there wasn't much anyways. The drinks had to be rationed out a lot because if we didn't would be out in less than a day. We all went to go look for some gas and thankfully found a pharmacy that had a bunch of cars surrounding it… and they were full of gas. We filled up the two gas cans we had brought we were on our way. Same set up as the previous day. Daryl and I on the motorcycle, the others in the cars.

Honestly I was pissed off at Carol. She tried to convince Daryl that they should run away or some shit like that… yeah right… Keep dreaming Carol. Daryl knew I was frustrated about it, but he told me "there's no way in hell I'm leavin' you. Don't worry… Not with anyone." Which was a relief… did that mean even if Merle magically came back from the dead (assuming he was dead… we never found him or anything…) that Daryl wouldn't leave with him if Merle had wanted to? And if he did go, would he just leave me? Or would he take me with? The questions I had for something I knew wouldn't happen. But hey, it kept my mind busy, and at that time that was all I wanted, to escape reality for just a minute.

We drove up on a house and it appeared to be empty. Of course we kept our guard up while entering, but it was empty. We immediately started to search the house for food, or water or anything that we could use. Things to keep warm being one of the main things…. But food and water first.

A lot of us just gathered in the living room, where there was a mini fireplace that we could have made a fire in, but we wouldn't do that until night if we stayed that long. There was a cabinet that had four cans of some beans in them, so those would have to do. I could tell that life off of Hershel's farm was going to be hell, but I knew we would find a place. The house had a few more blankets which were greatly appreciated by all of us. And a closet full of clothes, men's and women's, meaning that a married couple had lived here, but were either dead or out there surviving. We didn't really bother with the shorts and tank tops that were left in there, but there were a few jackets that we grabbed just in case we needed them. We ate two cans of the beans that night, and we lit a fire in the fireplace to keep us warm. We still had the watch going, so Daryl was once again up and down throughout the night, waking me up to get under the warm blanket, but I didn't mind so much. There was a bed upstairs, but Lori and Carl took it. It just seemed right that Lori and Carl be in it. She was the only pregnant woman and he was the only child. I would have claimed it if they weren't with us though.

We wake up in the morning and head out of the house instantly, not taking any risks until we know we found a safe place for sure.


	27. Poor Sense of Timing

**One of you in particular will be somewhat pleased with this chapter… The 'hag from hell' as you call her gets put in her place :D enjoy... and you'll all understand the title when you get to that point in this chapter XD**

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We went to another house, but all stayed upstairs, splitting into four separate rooms that had beds. I instantly claimed one with Daryl, who got the night off as far as watch went. Glenn offered to take his place. The same things had been happening during the days for about a week, we just looked for food, water, and any weapons. We managed to fine more ammo, but no more guns. The bag we had before was left at the farm sadly, so that took away majority of our ammo and weapons. They also said they found a lot of food, but a lot of food could mean anything from four cans to one hundred cans. We were all huddled in the main bedroom of the house for a while, just talking and sitting by the fire that was built in the fireplace. I was snuggled up tight against Daryl, trying to keep him warm while nuzzling in so I would be warm at the same time. We had a blanket wrapped around both of us as well, so we were pretty comfortable, well as comfortable as we could be with carnivorous freaks walking around.

We were just sitting by the fire, just laughing, having a good time. I see Carol lean over close to Daryl to whisper something to him. I listened very carefully to what she had to say.

"This isn't right."

"What do you mean?" Daryl asked in his deep, raspy voice that he only used when he was somewhat angry.

"We were perfectly safe at the other house. Why did we have to move? Because Rick wanted to. That's what isn't right. We don't have a say in anything."

"Rick made the right call. We didn't have any food there."

"Someone could have made a run into the town. Daryl, we could just… leave.''

"I'm sorry, excuse me Carol?" I asked her, clearly enraged by what she had just suggested.

"What?''

"Hmmm, yeah his girlfriend is sitting right here and you're asking him to… run away with you?"

"I was talking to Daryl, not to you Kristyn."

"Yeah, sorry, but if you talk to him, you're pretty much talking to me, so yeah."

"Rick only uses him… and I'm just here because they don't want to let a person die."

"Whether that's true or not, it doesn't matter. You see, Daryl and I are together. If he were leaving he would probably bring me along before he took you. Maybe if Ed were still alive you could leave, but you're not going with my man. "

"You're disrespectful. Bringing my dead husband into this."

"One, your husband was an asshole… he deserved to die… Two. If Daryl wanted to leave he would have, Carol. He clearly wants to stay… so back off." I said while standing up to go into the room. Wow… the bitch came out of me… Sure it was a little harsh to say her husband deserved to die, but what could I do about it? What I said was said and I couldn't take it back.

Carol had been pissing me off lately… I get that Daryl tried to save her daughter and stuff, hell he was the only one who did anything to actually save her daughter, but that doesn't mean she should be all clingy and shit… Daryl came in the room about three minutes later.

"Remember when you told me that you used to be a bitch?"

"Yeah… I know I was just a bitch… You don't need to tell me… but Daryl, she is being super clingy and I don't like it. I don't want to be like the overly attached girlfriend or anything, but you're mine. It's not Daryl, Kristyn and Carol… or even just Carol and Daryl… its Daryl and Kristyn."

"I know… You know I wouldn't leave with her…" He said while taking off his shoes and lying down on the bed next to me.

"How long before you think people will be coming in?"

"I don't know, twenty minutes?"

"Do you think that's enough time to-"

"Oh my god… you really want to? Even with all the other people in the house?"

"We can sneak over to the other house if you'd feel more comfortable with it."

"Just making sure you're okay with it." He said as he pulled me in and kissed me… Yeah… still not going into those details… you know what we did… and it was freaking amazing… until the door opened.

"Oh my God!" We heard Carol cry out. Daryl, the boss he is, just motioned with his hand for her to leave. We heard the door shut and then the rest went by with no interruptions, which I had no problem with. I feel like Carol walking in on it was for the best… not that it wasn't super awkward, but maybe that got my point across to her?

I woke up curled into Daryl's body, both his arms hugging me tight to him. I sighed, completely content with the moment.

"I think we're staying here for another night." Daryl said.

"Did they really find that much food here?" I knew we found some, but I didn't know exactly how much.

"The pantry was pretty full. My guess is that the people who lived here only took a little assuming that in Atlanta they would be safe and wouldn't need to bring any food."

"Well, that's good I guess."

"Ain't no 'I guess' about it. It's great. We could stay here for a few more days if Rick's good with it."

"Hopefully we can stay here for another night or two then."

"We should get up." He said while sitting up on our bed.

We got dressed in the clothes we had thrown on the floor, seeing as we didn't have any other pairs of clothes, his were on the farm and mine were in my hummer… I was wearing my black skinny jeans with a deep purple long sleeve shirt and a black leather jacket over it and then my boots. (**I don't remember what I had her wearing, but if I did specify, I'm changing it… cuz yolo… hehe)**

We went to see the rest of the group back in the main bedroom. Carol was giving me somewhat of a glare while the others were trying to hold in their laughter.

"So… someone walked in." Glenn said trying to keep from laughing.

"Oh shut up… We thought we had longer." I said as I saw Carl look at his mom and ask her what it meant when Glenn said someone walked in. She just ruffled his hair and told him she'd tell him later. Poor Carl.

"Well thanks to your poor sense of time we were all cramped in on the floor…" Carol said.

"Carol, you need to stop," Daryl said. "She had every right to say what she did last night because of how you have been. You know we're together. We made a mistake with the time… deal with it." I loved it when he defended me, especially against that bitch.

Carol just looked down, ashamed of herself. Perfect.

We sat and ate a little bit and then just sat, switching out on watch duty every hour. When it was Daryl's turn I went with him and when it was my turn he came with me.

When he was sitting and watching for walkers, I was sitting next to him.

"I must say that I miss the farm. It was so much easier." I said.

"Yeah. Easy can be boring though."

"Once again, I'd rather be bored out of my mind and not have to worry about being eaten every minute of every day… if we see a walker would that mean Rick would make us move?"

"Probably. If there's one, there's probably more. Better to be safe than sorry."

"I guess. I love you." I said, probably the most random time in the world, but I didn't care.

"Love you, too."

We sat the rest of the time in silence, we were only out there for an hour, but I (well we I guess) had to go out in about three hours.

When we went in we sat with everyone else, just shared some funny stories from before the walkers came.

I didn't share anything… nothing really stood out to me as funny. But it was nice to hear other people's stories.

Daryl and I went out for my shift for watch, which went by really fast. Before we knew it we were inside again. Daryl told them that we were going up to bed and to just come get him when they wanted him to take watch for the night. The looks we got from the others told me they knew we weren't going to be sleeping the entire time… whatever, I really didn't care if they knew… we hadn't exactly fought to make it a secret… but we did lock the door that time…

We fell asleep for a short while, until we heard Rick yell up to us. "Walkers! We gotta move now!"

We quickly got dressed, grabbed the few blankets there were and jumped on the motorcycle. We followed Rick and Glenn down the road. There weren't that many walkers, but we didn't have the ammunition to be shooting them all down. We didn't know where Rick was leading us, but we followed patiently.

We stopped at a house about thirty miles away from the previous one. There wasn't any supplies in this one, but it was also bigger than the other ones. It had five bedrooms, clearly made for a bid family, and it had a big living room with a big couch that could be pulled out into a bed, and a recliner that could easily serve the purpose of a bed. The few supplies we had, blankets, water, and food would have to last, and if we ran out we could all go check the houses around us. And this house looked pretty secure. The only issue was that there wasn't a fireplace in it. I thought that a big house like that would have ended up having one. Nope… I ran and claimed a bed again. The rule of "dibs" still applies in the zombie apocalypse in my opinion. It all worked out anyways. T-Dog took the recliner, giving Carol the pull out bed; Rick, Lori, and Carl took one of the bedrooms; Daryl and I took a room; Glenn and Maggie took a room, no matter how much her father argued about it; Hershel took a room, and Beth took the other one.

T-Dog started the watch, switching out with Rick and Glenn every three hours.

It went like this for shifts in the new big house:

Rick, T-Dog, Glenn

Daryl, Rick, T-Dog

Glenn, Daryl, Rick

T-Dog, Glenn, Daryl

They switched out every two or three hours. It was nice because everyone got one night break every few nights.

Of course I had offered to go on watch, but Daryl told me that I would be bitching without my 'beauty rest'… sometimes he was so sexist… but he made up for it by just being an awesome boyfriend.

We went and looked in the other houses for supplies and found a few cans of food, but not much. We still have quite a few cans from the last house though, so it would last us at least a week.

Daryl and I were lying in the room we claimed as ours. "How was watch last night?"

"There was a car that drove by, but they didn't see me. They just went past, so Rick doesn't need to know. He would make us leave right away and I think that people just need to relax for a while." He said as he pulled me closer to him.

''That they do. We need to find a place to just say."

"Yeah we do." He said as he almost fell asleep. "Oh, shit I'm tired."

"It's okay, go ahead and go to sleep. I love you."

"Love you too. Hey Kristyn?"

''Yeah babe?"

"I know that now, it won't matter as much, but I don't care, because if the world wasn't shit, I would want to be with you forever. Wanna get married? As much as we can be married at least."

"Yes. Of course" He was right of course, that it wasn't much to be married in this world, but it meant the world to me that he even bothered to put himself out there like that. I gave him a kiss before I started to get up to go see we were going to do anything, but Daryl pulled me right back down. "Don't go." He said in a sleepy voice. I rolled my eyes at him and laid back down and cuddled up to him. I wish that life were as simple as always being able to lay in bed with my boyfriend- well husband. And yet with the walkers, this was becoming more and more rare... But when it did happen I treasured it. He was asleep almost instantly, considering he didn't have to go out and look for anyone or get anything, he was really laid back… which was weird because he was always the kind of person who had to be up and around at all times. But hey, I wasn't complaining. The world just seemed to disappear as I fell asleep, wrapped in Daryl's arms.


	28. Abandoned

**mrskaz453- Glad you're liking the story! Also, I'm glad that I'm not the only one who hates Carol, I love the nickname you gave her "Hag from hell" epicness! **

**Also, for everyone, I realize that last chapter I made a mistake with the shift, instead of Glenn I meant Daryl… oops… sowwy! FORGIVE ME! :/**

I wake up, but Daryl wasn't there, which was confusing for me because he didn't get up unless I was at least awake while he did. I got up and walked down the stairs, expecting to see everyone huddled in the living room… but no one was there… all I saw was a piece of paper thrown on the ground with a gun on top of it and a can of food. I went over and grabbed the gun and put it in the back of my jeans. I picked up the letter. It was folded in three, like you would do it if it were in an envelope, and had my name written in big sloppy letters on the front.

_Kristyn,_

_I know that you're probably confused. Rick made us go… and he told us to leave you, saying you were a danger to the group or some shit. He told me that he would shoot you if I didn't come. I figured he wouldn't do it, but with how he's been lately… I wasn't going to risk it… I will be back tonight after dark to get you, and if you don't want to we won't go back to them. I left you my gun and a can of food that I grabbed. I love you and stay in the house, don't leave. We are probably only going up the road a ways, so I will be back as soon as my shift starts for watch. Also, the others didn't agree with Rick leaving you… well Carol did… but no one else, it's just not safe to argue with him right now… so don't be mad at them._

I pause reading. Of course Carol would… that bitch wants Daryl… I quickly check how many rounds I have in the pistol he left for me. Six… not a lot, but if I needed them… six is better than none.

_Today is just a crazy day… First we get 'married' then Rick makes me just get up and leave you. I'm sorry, I know it must be stressful, but right now there isn't much to do about it… Don't worry I'll be back for you though… I promise. I love you._

I sit for an hour in the fading light that was shining through the windows. I read the letter over and over, and counted the rounds in the gun. I ate half of the can of food.

It was the most boring time of my life… I really wished that my video games were there… and I missed Daryl, which made the time drag on a lot longer than it really was… every minute felt like ten.

It was about twenty minutes after the sun went down. I heard the door squeak open. I turned only to hear a man talk to someone else.

"I'm tellin' ya, there was people here yesterday." Said a big man with a New York accent.

"Well there is a girl sitting on the floor… Is that who you meant Rob? One girl, with what seems to be a can of food and one gun?"

"No there were, like two or three cars. They ain't here no more.''

I pulled up the gun and aimed at the fat one's head. "Who are you? Why are you here?''

"We came to help the group that was here yesterday. We have a larger group and Rob was out looking for supplies and saw the cars here. You know where they went?" The slimmer one asked.

"You have a larger group? I have a few questions I would like to ask you quick, if that's okay." I said with a smile while lowering the gun and standing up.

"Sure, anything you want sweetheart." The big man named Rob said.

"What are your names?"

"Kyle, and the big guys Rob."

"Great. I'm Kristyn. In your group, did you have a kid named Randall?"

"A kid, like how old?"

"Eighteen or nineteen, no older than I am.''

"Yeah, why?"

"So you're the assholes who go around and kill people to take what you want then?'' I asked while putting my gun up again and aiming it at Robs head.

"And who told you we did that?" Kyle asked, gun raised toward me.

"Randall of course. We tortured him to get information about your group. He also told us something a little more interesting about you."

"What's that sweetheart?" Rob asked me.

"First off fat ass, don't call me sweetheart… Second, told us an interesting story about how your group of fine gentlemen, who were out looking for supplies, raped two young girls…" I moved the gun to point toward Kyle's head. "So that's the kind of assholes you are? Can't get any girls to actually want to be with you so you force them?''

"I find it amusing that she thinks she'll be able to overpower us." Kyle said as he started to take a step toward. Now would be a great time for Daryl to show up… Kyle was about two feet away from me… until I pulled the trigger sending the bullet through his brain. I let out a sigh, forgetting about the other half of the threat. He pulled the gun out of my hand. I didn't know how he got there so fast, but before I knew it he pushed me down on the ground. Shit… The fat man started to lower himself down by me… I knew what he was going to do… it was quite obvious. I started to fight, like anyone would, as he started to try to tear my clothes off of my body. I eventually resorted to scratching at his face… it didn't work though because I had been biting my nails down… damn stress…

"Just stop fighting. You ain't gonna win." He said as he finally managed to get my pants down.

"Yeah, there ain't no way she'll win," said a familiar voice.

"Daryl?" I asked.

"But... I will." He finished, kicking the fat man in the face. He went over and sat down on the man, crossbow in hand, pointing it at his head. "You're one sick asshole, huh? Goin' around rapin' women?" he stood up and sent one kick into the man's side. "That's my wife! You sick asshole!" He said before sending the arrow through the fat man's eye.

I stood up and pulled my pants back up from when he managed to get them down. Daryl ran over to me. "Are you okay? God I'm sorry I'm late, but-" I interrupted him with a kiss.

''I'm fine…" I say while panting. "Just glad you got here when you did.''

"Who were those guys?"

"Members of Randall's old group."

''Damn… Where do you want to go now? We can go back to Rick and the others, but I don't know if you want to."

"Oh no, we're going back to them.''

"Alright, back to them it is." He said as he pulled me in for a hug. I wasn't cold, but I was shaking like I was practically frozen. "You're safe now. You're okay. If you need to cry, then do it, I don't care" Daryl said comfortingly, petting the back of my head.

"No, thanks to Rick…." I said, letting the tears start to stream out. We left a few minutes later and arrived at the house a minute or two after that… I could have found the house they moved to if I looked down the street… Rick really wasn't good at abandoning people.

Daryl and I walked in and I instantly shouted. "Rick!''

"Why is she back here?" Carol asked.

"Went to get her. Good thing I did too… You wanted her gone… sick bitch…" Daryl spit out at her.

"What?" Rick came down, rubbing his eyes.

"You fucking asshole!" I said as I pushed him against the wall and pointed the gun Daryl left me at his head.

"How'd you get back?"

"Daryl."

"Why'd you leave your post?" Rick asked angrily.

"Good thing I did. Two people from Randall's group were there." I felt the tears forming in my eyes… it was an experience I wouldn't ever, ever forget.

"What happened? What's wrong?" Lori stormed down asking.

"Yeah, Rick… You know what they tried to do? Oh yeah, one of them tried to rape me." I said with the tears streaming quickly down my face.

"Oh God, Kristyn, sweetie are you okay?" Lori asked with a concerned voice.

I still had my gun to Ricks head. I chuckled at her, "Am I okay? What do you think Lori? You're husband just left me for dead and some fat ass almost raped me… Oh yeah… one hundred percent, perfectly fine… "

"Kristyn you need to put the gun down."

"Lori, he left me for dead, I should shoot him. Give me one reason why I shouldn't."

"Daryl, control her!" Lori shouted.

"She should… hell, I should, he left my wife-"

"Wife?" Carol cut in.

"Yes, Carol, now please shut the fuck up. The adults are talking." I said.

"Don't talk like that to me!" She shouted, I simply pushed her with the palm of my hand to get her away from me.

''I should shoot you, too. You agreed with it. Daryl told me. And yet you want him to run away with you?"

"Like I said, he left my wife for dead, and she almost got raped in the process. Rick, if I left Lori how would you feel?'' Daryl continued.

"That's diff-"

"It's no fucking different than you leaving me! Don't you fucking dare try to say it is!" I put the gun down. "Rick, I swear to God, you do something stupid like that shit again, I will find you, and I will kill you. No problems with it."

"Maybe I was wrong."

"Pff… 'maybe'… No Rick you were 100% wrong. You don't know how scary it is to wake up and see everything gone… and then a few hours later almost get raped by some fat ass. You had no right to leave me like that. Absolutely no right. Hell, when you told the group we're all infected, I stood up for you. And this, THIS is how you repaid me. Some leader you are." I said before Daryl led me to a room he claimed. "It's been another shitty day…'' I said before falling asleep in Daryl's arms.


	29. Place to Place

**ERG I CAN'T FIND MY FLASHDRIVE! D: I AM SOOO PISSED! I saved this part on there and now that its gone... SAD PANDA! Also, the credit to a few Ideas in this chapter go to mrskaz453! Thanks for the ideas :P ALSO these next few chapters won't be exact to the show… sadly… Season three comes out on DVD the 27****th****… and Someone deleted all the show off of my dvr… :(**

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I was pissed… not just at Rick, but at everyone… They didn't speak up when Rick told them to leave me… cowards… The fact that they would just up and leave me… and I am NOT a danger to the group… hell if anything I help out more than anyone. They should just leave Carol…. She does laundry… and there really isn't any of that to be done anymore… all she does is eat and sleep… no use to us at all… She's a burden…

"Daryl…" I said as we were lying in our room. "I can't forgive him…"

"No one's asking you to."

"I think Carol had something to do with this…"

"I don't know… I mean, I know she's been getting on your nerves, but I don't know if Carol would do something like that."

"Daryl, what have I done that is dangerous to the group?"

"You ran away to look for Sophia."

"That was dangerous for myself…and you because you came and looked for me. Anything else?"

"Nothing…''

"Exactly… Someone had to want me to go… and as far as I know the only person who hates me is Carol… Oh by the way, her face when you said wife was priceless."

"Maybe someone else wanted you to go… we just need to find out who… maybe you could talk to Rick about it?"

"Maybe…"

I did. I confronted Rick about it almost immediately. He was sitting out on watch on top of the red truck, so I just went out by him.

"Hey, Rick?"

"I feel terrible for leaving you… especially with what you said happened."

"It was Randall's old group… well two of them from it at least…"

"Christ."

"There is a reason I'm talking to you, and it isn't to say sorry for putting the gun in your face."

"What do you need?"

"Why did you really leave me?"

"You were dangerous."

"What did I do that was dangerous?" He didn't say anything. "Exactly, why'd you do it?"

"Well… Someone told me something… that you were doing… that could be dangerous for us… and I couldn't let the group be risked by something you were doing… If leaving one person means protecting the rest of us, I'll do it."

"Who told you I was doing something?" He looked out toward the road. "Rick, who?" I heard him whisper something under his breath. "Rick, please… I need to know this."

"It was Carol. She said you were trying to get Daryl to leave with you and we can't have him leave… He's too valuable to the group."

"Really? Because Carol was suggesting she and Daryl go together… I told her to stop saying stupid shit like that…"

"Why would she ask him to leave though? It's not believable what you are saying right now."

"Daryl was the only one who actually found everything when looking for Sophia, the house, the doll, even just the tracks. She is clinging to him because of that… Thinking Daryl's in love with her or some crazy shit like that…"

"You serious?" He asked. I just replied with a nod.

"Thanks for telling me Rick."

"Do you forgive me yet?"

"This is a step in the right direction… I'm just not ready yet… you did leave me and I almost got raped… that's a lot to be forgiven for…"

I went inside and found Carol sitting in the living room. "You bitch…" I said to her.

"What?"

"Don't act so innocent. Rick told me everything… I didn't think that you would stoop so low… What do you think Sophia would say if she were here?"

"You leave her outta this…"

"Look… I understand you have some creepy crush on my HUSBAND," I said putting extra emphasis on it. "but, you are going to stop trying to get him… He's with me, we're together, I don't care if you want to be his friend, but when it comes to me or you living, I can promise you he would choose me."

I started to walk away as she looked down at the floor in silence, until she said, "You and Daryl... you'll never truly be married."

"Why? Because we don't have the legal documentation? Because we don't have the rings? Those things don't matter because it isn't what marriage is. Marriage is two people that love each other wanting to be together forever... and who are you to say we'll never truly be married?"

I went back upstairs and found Daryl sitting on the bed and looking out the window. I sat down by him, grabbed his hand, and leaned my head against his shoulder.

"What'd he say?"

"It was Carol. She told him that I wanted you and me to run away... even though she was asking you to go with her..."

"Why would that make him leave you?"

"He said that you were too valuable to lose... That you are one of our best chances of survival, which is true of course.''

''It's still fucking stupid that he left you... I'm sorry I left, but I couldn't risk hi-"

"Daryl, don't worry about it... I'm here, I'm safe, all because you came to get me... don't take this whole thing out on yourself. You did something about it... If anything be pissed at Rick and Carol... not yourself."

"Trust me, I'm pissed at them too..."

"Well stop being mad at yourself."

"I didn't have to leave... I could have just stayed..."

"The letter told me why you didn't do that..."

"Yeah... but."

"God, Daryl stop being an ass." I said with a laugh.

"I know I'm an ass..." He said as he leaned down and kissed me. I pulled him down on the bed so he was laying on top of me. We made out, almost did the ''it''… until there was a knock on the door…

"Hey Kristyn?" Carl called in.

"Yeah? What is it?" I called out to him, breathing heavily.

"I found some cool board games and I was wondering if you wanted to play!"

Daryl rolled his eyes. "Uhh, Carl, can this wait buddy? Daryl and I were… uhhh, talking! Yeah… we were talking. A little later maybe? Or ask your mom or someone?"

"Ummm, Okay?" He said as I heard him walk down the stairs.

"Little bastard killed the mood…" Daryl complained

"Oh shut up!" I said pulling him in and kissing him again.

We had fun… you know what I mean…

"What should we tell Carl if he asks what we were talking about?"

"Uhhhh… Birds and Bees?"

"Cute." He said, causing me to stick my tongue out at him.

"I don't know… just tell him we talked about a bunch of random stuff. He shouldn't be nosy…"

"I guess that'll work."

We went downstairs and saw them all playing monopoly. Ahh monopoly… the game that tears happy families apart. I missed playing that with my family… Family game night was big with us… every Wednesday night. Movie night was big too, but we couldn't really watch movies anymore… Sadly… I missed movies. They were a nice escape from the world..

We all went to bed. Rick made us get up in the morning and we all moved on, driving for a few hours, trying to get as far away from Atlanta as possible. We stopped at another house, ate the last of the food we had, and slept there. Not much happening in the day.

We continued moving little by little every day for about a month. Lori continued to get bigger and bigger.

We eventually came on a house that was filled with walkers, but we had to look for food… we didn't have any left so that was something that we needed to find… We cleared out the walkers that were in the house. We all went into the living room while some of our group searched the kitchen.

Carl came walking out with a can of dog food. He instantly started to cut it open with his knife… Yeah.. I wasn't eating that… And Rick made sure no one did. He took it and threw it in the fireplace.

"We're not stooping so low."

"We need to find something."

"It's gonna have to wait… Look outside." A herd was somewhat closing in on us, they heard the gunshot from clearing the house out of course. We all ran out to the cars and drove away.

When we were far enough away, they stopped and looked at a map.

"We can't keep moving around like this." Rick said.

"Not with Lori…" I agreed. I was still mad at him about leaving me, but with Lori's pregnancy and all… I decided to cut him some slack because that had to be stressful on him.

"We should find a house and set up there, and then I can go out and hunt, get some food for us."

"Daryl… I don't know if that's a good idea… Herds are all over this place. You know what could happen…"

"I'll go with him." Rick said.

"I still don't know… "

"We haven't found anything to eat… and we need it…''

"Kristyn… We'll come back. But if a herd is coming you get everyone together and run. I don't care if we're not back, you get everyone out of there."

"Fine… You'd better come back…''

We found a house and they went out. I was worried, keeping watch, making sure there were no herds… hours past and they weren't back. Another two hours… not back… but about twenty minutes after that they came through the door.

"We found a place." Rick said.


	30. The Prison

**Sadly I am starting school this Wednesday, so I will no longer be able to upload every night :( every other night maybe? I hope so, because I love writing for you guys!**

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They found a place… a prison, which just so happens to be a place… Of course a prison… We had to clear it out… there were a few walkers, not so much that we couldn't handle, but not so little that we could just use our knives… But the prison itself looked pretty safe. We wouldn't be able to clear it out that night, but there was a big field that had fences around it that had no walkers in it, so we just had to get to that to be safe for the night. We did stay in the field for the night. We built a small fire, Beth sang us a song upon the request of her father, we just sat and had a good time.

"Daryl, Kristyn? Can I talk to you?" Rick asked.

"Sure, what's up?'' I said.

"In private." Rick said while motioning away from the group. Daryl and I got up and followed Rick away from the group.

"I need to know, Daryl was Carol the one asking you to leave?"

"Yeah, she was, the night we just got away from the farm and a month or so ago in one of the houses."

"I feel like an idiot…."

"Rick, you didn't know what to do, sure I'm still pissed about the whole situation, but if I thought someone was a threat I would leave them too…" I told him.

"But it wasn't true… you could have been killed over some… stupid mistake… because of Carol…"

"The bitch has it out for me… I don't know why- what I did to her- but she hates me… It's okay, because she can't do anything for herself anyways… always needs someone to protect her, but I won't be the one going out of my wa-" I stopped, clutching my side. "Ow."

"What's wrong?" Daryl asked, concern in his voice.

"Cramp, just a cramp… it'll pass, just give it a minute… Like I said, I won't be the one going out of my way to keep her safe." I said bent over in pain. I didn't know what was happening. I felt terrible for Daryl though. He didn't know what to do… hell I didn't know what to do… I've never once in my life had cramps…

"No one expects you to be the one. The question now is do we tell the group or not?"

"That the bitch told you it was me? My vote is yes, expose her for the bitch she is, but that's just me." I said, still leaning over in pain.

"Maybe later? Break it to them gently? I think they need to know though, but not tonight… it's the first night of rest we've had in a while." Daryl said as I sat down on the long grass, trying to get in a comfortable position. "Right now I need to focus on her though."

"I'm fine… do what you need to do, I'll be fine, just let it pass."

"It hasn't passed yet, so let me help."

"All I can do is let it pass, there isn't much to do about it."

Rick walked back to the group.

"What do you need? Medicine? Anything?"

"I need to find a comfortable position, not really something you can do for me." I snapped. I was sitting pretzel legged and leaning over so the rest of my body was flat down to the ground, putting pressure where the cramp was. "Anyways, it's better when I sit like this."

"Whatever works I guess… What's happenin'? You've never complained about cramps before this."

"I don't know… This is the first time I've had anything like this happen…"

"We need to figure out what's happenin'… and fast."

"Well, some things can't be taken care of… if this is something that requires surgery…. Well... if we were at the farm it would be possible… but here…"

"Don't talk like that…"

"Sorry… Not very optimistic am I?" I said as I sat up. The pain had gone down a lot since I was sitting like that.

"Not at all…"

"Well, I could-" I stopped… I knew what I was going to say, but I couldn't be… doctors had told me it most likely wasn't possible… about a ninety percent chance that I couldn't… but… I sighed…

"You could what?"

"Daryl… What if I'm pregnant?"

"I thought you said that wasn't possible." He said, looking quite surprised.

"Most likely… I said most likely… but… I can't be… I just can't be… Having a baby… first off, it'll hurt like a bitch… second, having a baby in this world? It would be dangerous… I can't have that… I can't…"

"Well if you are you won't have a choice…"

"…I know…. I just… Can we not talk about this right now…"

"Okay… Do you want me to go find a test? Or no, or what?"

"I don't know… just… drop it for now… please? I'll go sit on watch or something."

The next morning we cleared out the rest of the prison. It wasn't hard, but it wasn't easy either… there were guards with helmets so we couldn't get their heads without getting up close. We tried not to use our guns too much either, so that added another difficulty. Daryl used his crossbow… I would have used mine, but it was left at the farm… We had to close off a gate too, so someone had to work their way back there while taking out the walkers. But when it was cleared out it was worth it. We went in and got the keys off of a dead guard. Rick lead us to a cell block that was clear. People went into cells, but I didn't want to sit in a cell… didn't seem right to me… Daryl agreed and we just took a spot catwalk.

"We need to check out the rest of the prison…" Rick told us. He had some of us stay here. Meaning Carl, Lori (Of course Lori.), the stupid bitch, Beth, and me. We sat and did absolutely nothing… but I needed to talk to Lori about baby issues… if I were pregnant… I was going to need her advice…

"Uhhh Lori?"

"Yeah Kristyn?"

"Can we talk? It's kinda important…"

"Sure."

"Okay…" I whispered, "I have a little bit of an issue…"

"Oh God, what happened?"

"Well, it's not so much what has happened… but what could be happening."

"What is it?"

"I- I may- ummmm- yeah I might be pregnant…" I stuttered, tears forming in my eyes.

''Kristyn… This…"

"I know, I know! Before all this the doctors said I probably couldn't and then I was all like 'okay I don't need to use protection!' and now I'm freaking out… I had killer cramps and I know that that is kind of a 'symptom' and I've never had cramps before and I don't know what to do!" I said really fast, hardly understandable.

"We need to know for sure…"

"I know, but I don't want to have someone risk going out there to get the test or anything like that because if they didn't come back it would be my fault… I don't know what to do…"

"Wait… I may have another one… when I found out, there were two kits in the box and I may have it in the truck… we just need to go out and check…"

"Oh god… Lori you're a lifesaver…''

We managed to go out. Carefully of course, but the trucks were in and Lori managed to find it in the truck. I don't know why it ended up in there, but I really didn't care… As long as no one had to go out for me… I went and did what I had to do and went back by Lori. We waited the amount of time that the test required… My face fell when I saw that it was positive… "Jesus…" I sobbed…

"Kristyn, we're gonna take care of this."

"Lori… it was hard enough to do this before the walkers… now? I don't think I can do this." I said as the doors to our cell block slammed open. We looked out and saw Rick and Daryl rolling Hershel on a big metal cart.

"What happened?" I said while wiping away the tears.

"Hershel got bit on the leg, so I cut it off to try to stop the infection from spreading." Rick told me.

Maggie and Glenn came in right after them (**lol idk who comes in first or if they're together, so I'm just making it up :P)** and Maggie was instantly by her father's bedside. I was worried about Hershel, of course, but I had something else to worry about at this point… Daryl had to know.

"Uhhh.. Daryl? I know we have an issue with Hershel but… Can we talk?"

"Uh, yeah?"

"So… uhh Lori had another pregnancy test… and I took it and… it was positive… and I don't know what to do…"

"We'll take care of it. That's all we can do."

* * *

**I wasn't sure how to finish this one off, so I just did it there... yeah... bad ending I know...**


	31. Invasion

**I totally butchered the last part with Lori, Maggie and Carl... I failz :P**

* * *

I was confused. Part of me wanted to be happy, and the other part… well… the other part was the dominant part… The side that was constantly worrying about tomorrow, the part that worried about the child that was growing inside of me… worrying if something would go wrong… worrying if he or she died sooner rather than later… if we couldn't protect it… everything negative was running through my mind.

But when I thought of the positive… I was going to be a mom. Me, Kristyn Dixon, (Nice ring to it, huh?) I was going to be a mom… and Daryl was going to be a dad… Sure I was having a baby a little earlier than I had hoped, twenty was pretty young, but I didn't really care…

It wasn't going to be easy… hell, it was probably going to be the hardest thing I've ever done, but Daryl was there, we could work through it together.

Daryl and I were sitting where we had set up, and just lying down, relaxing. "You know Daryl, when you asked if I could have kids, and I told you I couldn't, you said you were sad… this is you getting what you wanted."

"Yeah, but it couldn't have happened at a worse time."

"I disagree, maybe we will end up being here for a while… long enough to have him or her at least."

"Hopefully… otherwise, I don't know how we'll do this…"

Hershel was out… Rick had him handcuffed to the bed he was in, just in case… While they were searching the prison, Rick, Daryl, and T-Dog had found a group and had offered to help them clear out a cell block in exchange for half of the food. I didn't want Daryl to go… of course I didn't, but Rick said THEY would help…

When they left I was sitting in a random cell, relaxing, patting my stomach even though there was hardly anything there to pat. While lying down I saw Carol walk past with an evil look on her face.

"Problem Carol."

"You… having a baby… when there's already one on the way… You know how hard it's gonna be to take care of them both?"

"One, not much I can do about being pregnant; Two, is someone a little jealous?"

''Of you? Of course not."

"Of me and Daryl though?''

"You don't deserve him… He's too good."

"And you do right? Because he _really_ wants to be with you, that's why he's sleeping with me, right? You really think you really deserve him? You told Rick to leave me, do you think Daryl wants to be with a monster like you? This is _my_ family you're messing with… and if you try anything, I will take action."

"I see you for who you really are, Kristyn"

"What am I Carol? Please, enlighten me kind madam…" I said sarcastically.

"You're an evil person who cares only for herself."

"Really? I went out and looked for YOUR daughter… almost died while looking too… where were you when everyone was looking? Oh that's right… cooking dinner… doing laundry… You never went out except when we were still at the highway. You didn't even try to go out with anyone…"

"I wouldn't make it on my own."

"That's why there is such a thing as a 'group'. I was told to stay, but you, no one told you to do anything, you could have gone out and looked for your daughter… So why didn't you?" She was silent for about a minute. "No Carol… You don't know anything about me… But I know something about you. You're a mother who didn't care if her little girl came back or not. Did you even care before she was lost? I mean, really, you let your husband beat you both… You should have gotten the mother of the year award…" I ended sarcastically. She walked in the cell I was in and slapped me.

"What the fuck?" I heard Daryl ask from behind Carol.

"Did you hear how she was talking to me?" Carol asked him.

"I don't care how she was talkin' to you… you ain't gonna be slappin' her. Hell, she should be slappin' you… you did tell Rick to leave her at that house.''

"Is that true?" Lori asked from behind. That probably wasn't how she should have figured out, but she knew now…

"Yeah." I said, as I sat up on the bed with a slight cramp… damn these things… I didn't know what was causing it either… Daryl pushed Carol out of the way and sat on the bed next to me. "She told Rick that I wanted me and him to run away, get out of the group… Rick told me that Daryl was too valuable to lose."

"Why didn't you say anything until now?"

''We wanted to break it gently… Rick was going to help us say it, but we didn't want to say it too… quickly… We wanted to give time to process it I guess…"

"Carol, why would you do that?"

"I have my reasons.''

"She hates me… I don't know why… She wants Daryl though…''

"Carol… you're insane…" Lori said.

They continued to argue, but Daryl and I got out of that little spat.

"How did clearing it go?"

"Well, one of them pushed a walker on Rick and told him it was an accident, but Rick killed him, another one tried to get Rick, but Rick pushed him outside and told him to run. The other two are staying in a different cell block pretty far away from ours. We took our food and left them… There were a lot of bodies in it too… They were begging us to reconsider… we couldn't do it though… They thought that the prison was theirs because they were here first, but we cleared it out… that's what Rick told them."

"Well, I'm glad they aren't here… I don't know how I would feel with convicts here… even though that's the past… it doesn't make them any more trustworthy…''

"That's why we left 'em… it was the deal, we help them, they give us food… not them moving in with us…''

The next two days flew by… We did almost lose Hershel, but Lori saved him with CPR…. Carl did go to the infirmary to get medicine… alone… Lori wasn't happy with that one… but Hershel was up and moving the next day, so that was a plus… well he needed a crutch... he was missing a leg, but he was up and around a little bit. We were all sitting outside, soaking up the sun.

Well, we were until we saw all the walkers scrambling toward us. Gunfire was all I could hear. I couldn't see Daryl so I was freaking out even more.

"KRISTYN! OVER HERE!" I heard Maggie yell. I looked for her and ran to her instantly. I saw that Hershel and Beth closed off the gate to where we were staying. We slammed the door shut and started to run through the maze… not easy… especially when Lori stopped and noticed that her water had just broken.

"Oh shit, Maggie what do we do!?" I yelled out.

"In here!" Carl yelled opening a big door. It was a boiler room.

It all went so fast… First we get into the boiler room, then Maggie is helping Lori get ready to push. It was going okay… until Lori started to hemorrhage… I knew what was happening… but Carl he had no idea…

"Maggie, I'm losing the baby… You have to do the C-section."

"You'll die, Lori!"

"I know what I'm doing!" Carl was looking down at his mother in shock. I felt bad for him too… having to watch this only to realize that she wasn't going to make it through it either way. "I'm not losing the baby."

"Okay… okay…" Maggie stuttered out, getting ready to do it.

"Carl, you're the best thing I ever did. Don't let the world spoil you." She said. She was lying on the ground. She pulled him in for a hug and told Maggie she was ready.

"Lori, I don't know where to cut…"

"Look at my stomach. The long scar. That's from when I had Carl, cut along the line, but be careful when you're in."

Tears were forming in my eyes. I just had to stand and watch… I couldn't do anything to save her. The second Maggie started to cut into Lori's stomach the room was filled with nothing but horror. Lori's screams were the sound of true pain. Seconds later she passed out from the pain. I went down to Maggie and had to look at what she was doing, helping her if necessary. Carl was still by his mother's side, holding her hand. Maggie got the baby out, it was a girl, and I grabbed a towel that was in the room, making sure it was as clean as possible. I took the baby from her and we started to leave.

"We can't just leave her, she'll turn!" Carl yelled. Maggie pulled out her gun about to go take care of it for him until he spoke up about it. "No, let me do it…" He said. He went back in the room alone. All we heard was a gunshot ring through the door as we walked out. Carl came out seconds later, tears in his eyes. We began to work our way through the maze again, but this time out back to the courtyard.

I was shocked… confused… Lori was gone… I was in tears… I knew I shouldn't have been, and I tried to stop, Carl should have been crying, but he just lead us out the door.

Everyone except for T-Dog and Carol was standing in the courtyard. Carl led us out and Rick's face fell when I was the last one to walk out with a baby in my arms.

Daryl ran over to me. "What happened?"

"She was bleeding… The baby was dying… we had to do the C-section." I sobbed out. He pulled me in for a hug, careful not to crush the baby that was in my arms. "I didn't know what to do."

"You did everything you could…"

"He had to watch his mother die… He even shot her in the head to make sure she wouldn't come back… I didn't know what to do… Daryl… what if that happens to me? I… I don't even- Oh god…"

"Don't think that. Don't." I pulled myself away to examine the baby. She hadn't cried yet and that meant she probably was having a hard time breathing.

"Christ. Hershel!?" I called out while running toward him. "What do I do? Tell me what to do!"

"You need to clear out her nose and throat." I quickly went to the truck to look through the few baby supplies they had found. I found one of those sucky thingys that clears out the nose and stuff. "Can I use this?" He nodded and I struggled to get it open until Daryl came over and tore it open for me. I started with her throat so she could start out better. I then got her nose. It took a second, but she cried. "Thank God.''

There were a few diapers and other baby things in the car, so while Rick was freaking out and everyone else was mourning Lori, I took care of the baby. I had to clean her off, so I did that first, then got her in a diaper and wrapped her up in a blanket there was. I hugged her back to my body. I knew she wasn't mine, but with Lori gone… someone had to step up for the time being…

* * *

**Another sucky ending…. But this one is close to 2000 words, so I had to end it here… sorry! But when I update I can either make super short ones (Like 400-500 words… maybe a little more) every night, or super long ones but those would be every other night or something like that… sorry I know… blame school!**


	32. Lil' Ass Kicker

**Sadly I start school tomorrow :( so this will be the last update for two nights :/ sowwy! over the weekend I am going to write a few chapters and put them up over the week though so that should be nice... they just won't be that long :(**

* * *

Rick was insane. He told us there was a phone call from "Somewhere safe". I know he had just lost his wife, but a phone call? And since he was out of it, I was getting PLENTY of practice taking care of the baby... Carol wasn't there to help... that was the only time I'd wish she'd been there. She was the only one with any true experience other than Hershel... and he just lost a leg, so i wasn't gonna make him do it. It got a little easier when she started to get on a schedule though. She started off sleeping all day, keeping me up all night... but I kept her up for some of the day (Seeing as babies are only up for about 6 or 7 hours...) and made her sleep through the night. She only got up when she was hungry or needed to be changed. Daryl was getting somewhat pissed though. Every time she cried, either the crying woke him up or me getting up to help her woke him up.

"You know how you always got up in the middle of the night for watch? Well, this is what that felt like... So stop whining!" I told him.

Sadly though she woke everyone up...

Rick was gone, but while he was we did "Graves" (I put the "s there because we didn't have the bodies...) of the people we recently lost... even Carol...

Then we went and all sat in the cell block and it was time to feed the baby. I was about to do it, but Daryl stopped me and took the bottle and the baby from me. **(OMG WHEN HE FEEDS LIL' ASS KICKER MY OVARIES ALMOST EXPLODED! AHH SO FREAKING HOT!) **

"She should have a name," Carl said.

"That she should have. We can't keep calling her baby... and with your dad gone for now... Why don't you name her? She is your sister." I told him.

"How about naming her after someone who died that was in our group? Like Lori?" He asked.

"I don't know how your dad would take that... especially now..."

"Amy? Andrea? Carol?" My face twisted at the last one.

"How 'bout lil' ass kicker?" Daryl asked, looking down at the baby. "Yeah, lil' ass kicker."

"Really?" I asked while chuckling.

"Hey, I like it. and until we come up with a solid name, I'd say its pretty decent."

"Only you could come up with something like that. I guess for now lil' ass kicker it is.''


	33. Heartbroken

**Okay, so I know I said I wouldn't update for two nights, but I looked at the views and it was at 5,555 so I couldn't resist :3 Also, I'm sorry the past few chapters haven't been very descriptive... season three comes out next week though, so it should get a little better then! ALSO I know that Daryl and Merle never actually go to the prison before Daryl leaves the group, but I really don't think if he had someone there that he would just leave... so i made them show up... lol STORY CHANGERS!**

* * *

Glenn and Maggie had gone out to get Ass Kicker some more formula and other things that the group needed. They weren't back yet and I was pretty worried about them. Rick was finally somewhat out of his daze and actually holding and taking care of his baby, which was amazing for me... I actually got a break. Daryl, Carl, and Oscar, one of the prisoners from before, were clearing out the lower levels so we wouldn't have to worry about many walkers. We let Oscar move into our cell block... I still wasn't comfortable, but he had been proving himself trustworthy...

I went outside and sat, clearing my mind. My stomach was getting a little bigger... which was surprising because I had just found out about it a week or two ago... Rick called me over to him asking me to take the baby. I took her and he ran over to the fence. I saw a bunch of walkers surrounding it... and a woman holding a basket full of the things Maggie and Glenn were supposed to bring back. I look at her, and as Rick gets closer, she passes out. There were a few walkers around her, but she had her scent masked by the walker blood splattered all over her body. Rick quickly went out and got her, killing the walkers around her. He took her in the prison and once she woke up, began to interrogate her. She ignores him, of course...

Daryl walked over and interrupted the interrogation. He called us all over to a cell. It was Carol... damn...

"Poor thing fought her way into a cell," Daryl explains. "Must've passed out, dehydrated."

As much as I hated the woman, I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy... which she had just so happened to be... I ran over to get Ass Kicker, who I had set down while Rick was interrogating the woman.

"Where's Lori?" Carol asked. I shook my head in response. "Rick, I'm sorry." She said as I handed her the baby.

Rick had continued to interrogate the woman and she told us her name was Michonne and that she had seen an Asian man and a woman with short brown hair be taken by a man with one hand. She told us of a place called "Woodburry" which had about seventy-five residents all being led by a man who called himself ''the Governor". She also offered to help us get in to get Glenn and Maggie, because that was most likely where the man had taken them.

Rick, Oscar, and of course, Daryl offer to go with Michonne to get Glenn and Maggie.

I was, as always, nervous... He was out there for the millionth freaking time... It was almost dark when we heard some screams coming from down the halls of the prison. Carl went out to investigate... I told him I could, but he insisted... Carl came back with five people.

"Carl, what are you doing? Leading them here? Really? I knew I should have gone..." I said.

"I know what I'm doing Kristyn don't worry." He said as he led them to the area Michonne had been locked in. "Listen, she was bit... you have to take care of that."

"We take care of our own.'' He said as Carl started to close the door.

"You can't lock us in here!" One of the women in the group called out.

"This is the best living situation we've had in weeks, Sasha..." the man told her.

They took care of the problem of course... they didn't have much of a choice... Hershel was dressing some of the wounds that their group had, while they were planning a funeral for the woman they shot named Donna.

I decided to sit outside and wait for them... I knew that they would be back... they had to come back, they always did.

Of course they did... I see them and I run over to help open the gate. I jumped into Daryl's arms and gave him a passionate kiss.

"When did that happen, little brother?" I heard a man ask... Merle.

I pulled away. "You're alive? How the hell did you get out of that city?"

"No thanks to your group." He spat out at me.

''Don't be pissed at me, I went into the city to save your ass. If you would have stayed put..." Merle had ended up being like the douche bag older brother that nobody wanted over the few weeks we had been in a small group... always badgering me, poking fun at the smallest things I did...

''If I stayed put I woulda died.''

"Merle, stop." Daryl said angrily. He paused and put a hand on my stomach. "I just realized you were actually starting to show... sorry 'bout that." I just chuckled and hugged him.

"When did that happen? Baby brother finally grow a pair and fuck a girl? 'Bout time you manned up."... Merle...

"I'm just glad you're back." I whispered, ignoring Merle.

"But uh, we need to talk 'bout something..."

"What?"

"Rick doesn't want Merle to stay here... and I ain't leavin' him again...''

''So what do you plan on doing?"

''He's goin' with me sweetheart.'' Merle cut in, causing me to look up at Daryl.

"What? Please tell me he isn't serious."

"Come with." He said.

"Daryl, I'm having a baby, you really think I'm gonna make it out there?"

"I'll protect ya." I instantly started to cry... could he be serious? Or was this all just some sick joke.

"And when it comes time to have the baby? You're gonna help me deliver it, right?''

"Well, we'll figure it out..."

"Tell me you're joking... Please, don't be serious...'' I sobbed.

''Kristyn, I-"

"You know the answer to me going already... why would you ask? Why would you leave? That's the better question...''

"He wants to be with his brother, he can't help it." Merle said.

"Merle shut the fuck up. This is between Daryl and I, and I don't need your input right now.''

''Kristyn, I can't leave him out there... The place they were... it was sick, the governor wanted Merle and I to fight to the death and he had walkers on chains 'round us and-"

"Daryl, stop... you're being a selfish asshole... you don't just have you and Merle... You have me, and a baby to take care of..."

"He ain't gotta care 'bout you or no baby anymore." Merle said. I slapped him... it really wasn't the time for that... "You bitch! Don't you touch me!" He screamed as he raised his fist toward me.

"MERLE STOP!" Daryl shouted. "Kristyn, don't make me choose..."

"The choice should be clear... that's the issue Daryl... If you're gonna go then go... don't drag it on any longer, because the more you do, the more I get my hopes up... and the more my heart will be broken in the end...''

"Kristyn, I-"

I pushed him away from me and ran back toward the prison... Was he really going to just leave me? For his asshole of a brother who almost punched me? He did, too... Because when I turned around, I saw Merle and him open the gate and walk out. I went back in and went to sit in a cell.

"Where' Daryl?" Carol asked. I glared at her and shook my head, tears still pouring out of my eyes. I felt dead... I felt like my heart had just been torn from my chest... like my entire being was being torn to shreds... The man I loved just up and walked out on me.

The next morning I was emotionally drained... Not really caring to pick up on anything that was happening... or anyone around me... hell, I almost stopped caring about my baby... because it was his... And yet, even though I thought I didn't care, I had imagined him walking through that gate multiple times... I missed him and there was nothing I could do about that...

I picked up a little on the conversation Rick and the other group had... Rick made them leave... but the rest of the day I was either sitting outside or in a random cell, not caring who's it was. But when I was sitting outside, something jolted me up. A gunshot... Hearing Carol scream, I jumped up instantly. Axel, another prisoner who had been with us, was lying on the ground dead.

Gunfire was all around us. And a lot of it wasn't from our group. I stayed behind something at all times of course, seeing as I wasn't just protecting myself anymore... I had tried to look for Daryl, hoping he was alright... only to be reminded that he was gone... I looked again out I saw a bread truck break through the gate. A man jumped out to open it and out poured the walkers... I didn't know where Rick was, but I assumed that he was either hiding or dead... those were the only two options, right? I looked out and started to shoot at the walkers that were in the courtyard. I looked around and found Rick outside the fence, with a walker on top of him. I tried to run out to get it, but there were too many walkers... I was about to shoot, until I (barely... they were far away) saw an arrow shoot into the head of the walker who was about to bite Rick. Daryl was back... his shirt was all torn up, so something happened... I was happy and pissed off all at the same time... Merle too... Did he really let Merle come too...

We all went back in the cell block... Merle too... only he was locked in the small little room... I went back to the catwalk where Daryl and I had been staying. Daryl walked up to me.

"Can we talk 'bout this?"

"What's there to talk about? You left me. That's all there is to talk about..."

"Listen-"

"No, you listen. How could you? You just left me... You went with your douche bag brother, who doesn't even care about you by the way, and left me and your unborn child... All your brother does is tear you down! Don't you see that?"

"Yeah... He's my brother though..."

"He's your asshole of a brother who was torturing Glenn... what else did he do while you were out there? I know he did something."

"He tried to steal from a family I had saved... Had a baby..."

"That's the kind of person you want to be around?"

"Why do you think I came back? I wouldn't be here if I wanted to be around that... I forgot what an ass he really was."

"Why'd you leave in the first place? You just left me Daryl... you left me... When the shooting happened... I didn't know what to do... I looked for you, but you weren't there and I didn't know what to do..." I said, tears starting to stream down my face.

He sat down next to me and pulled me in and let me cry into his chest. "I'm sorry... I won't leave again, I swear." I couldn't help but forgive him, no matter how much I tried to forget, I still loved him.

Now the only issue was taking care of Merle...

* * *

**OKAY! so longer chapter again! lol I know... school and such, but we didn't have any homework or anything so I figured that i would write a long one tonight.. lol no big deal or anything. :P**


	34. Bad Dream

_At first I had no idea what was happening... then I realized it. I was having the baby. I just start to feel the pain and it was terrible. Daryl is, of course, right next to me. Hershel was delivering the baby and Beth was helping... I really didn't care who did it, I just wanted it out of me... safely of course. _

_"PUSH!" Hershel yelled at me, but the second I did, "Stop, you're bleeding!" He shouted... Oh no... I knew what it meant... Hershel knew what it meant... it meant my worst nightmare had come true... I was going to be cut open, and I probably wouldn't make it... He grabbed a knife and he wasn't even going to get my consent... even though I knew the right choice, let me die and save the child, of course... The second the knife was driven into my stomach I screamed louder than I thought possible. It hurt like a bitch... and before I knew it-_

I was shaken awake by Daryl who was standing in my cell. (I had moved because of our little... disagreement of him staying or leaving... I wasn't gonna sleep with him for a while after that...) Hot tears streaming down my face.

"What was it about?" He asked, clearly knowing it was a bad dream.

"Just... I had the baby, but it was just like Lori's and I think I died at the end, and then you woke me up...''

''You were screamin' pretty loud... I think you woke everyone up."

"Sorry..."

"You can't control your dreams...''

''I know... it's just... it was terrible and I was scared and now I'm even more scared and I don't know what to do to make it better..."

"Want me to stay with ya, or ya want me to go?"

"Stay... just for tonight... I'm still pissed though..." He nodded and and laid down next to me, pulling me in close too him... I may have been pissed... but the two nights without this had been hell...

**SUPER SHORT! Sorry, but something is better than nothing! I didn't have a lot of HW tonight so I just decided to write a short one... but tomorrow night, monday and tuesday there will be no updates for sure... I can try saterday and sunday night though :3**


	35. Spite

The nightmare took it out of me. I was terrified of what COULD happen. The entire day I was just zoning out, not wanting to talk to anyone about it. Daryl tried to reach out, but I refused to talk about it. I had to deal with it though because we were basically at war.

Rick, Michonne, and Carl went out to look for more weapons. If we were going to fight, we would need them desperately. And it was a while before they returned, and they returned with very little. A few baby things was really it…

Andrea, who we all thought dead, convinced Rick to meet with the Governor and try to get a treaty or something going.

"Daryl, I need you to come, and Hershel, I know it's a lot to ask with your leg, but can you come?" Rick asked.

I looked at Daryl as he went over. I got up and followed. Just me being pissed off, I said, "I'm going."

"No, you're not."

"Daryl, you don't control me at the moment, so yes, I am going. Deal with it…" Sure, that was all out of spite, but I really didn't care. They needed more than a few people and I wasn't THAT big…. They weren't going to argue with me, seeing as there was no point.

We went to the car, me carrying most of my knives that Daryl saved from the hummer.

"It isn't too late to change your mind, Kristyn…" Daryl said with a sigh at the end.

I just looked away from him. "The only bad things that could happen is they sneak attack us, in which case we would carefully get to the car, or a bunch of walkers walk on in, in which case we would, you guessed it, get in to the car… I'm not weak Daryl, even if I am pregnant…."

We drove the short drive to where Andrea told us. We cautiously got out of the car. The others were already there. Rick and the governor went into a barn/shed thing. Andrea went in, Hershel was sitting in the car, Daryl was standing guard watching one of the governor's men with hate in his eyes, while I sat… and sat and sat in the car... Until Daryl came over and wanted to talk.

"You okay?"

"Perfectly fine." I said angrily.

"Listen, I will do whatever it takes for you to forgive me, just tell me what it is."

"I just don't know Daryl... I don't know. You can let me punch you... get some of the angst out, but that's all I can think of right now..."

"Do what you gotta do. I don't care, I just want you back." I swung at him, striking him across the cheek. "A little better?"

"Maybe a little," I said as I leaned up and kissed his cheek where I punched him. "I love you, still. Don't forget it."

"Love you, too." I decided I was going to stand by Daryl for a while.

Andrea came out.

She told us a little of what was going down, just talking about it, trying to reason boundaries.

We sat some more, Daryl and governor's guy still glaring at each other, trying to one-up each other. Daryl was a competitive man… doing whatever he had to do to show he was a little better than the man. The second a small herd of walkers showed up, it was Daryl's time to shine. Hershel and Milton (One of the governor's man, my guess is that he was the Governor's right hand man.) I followed Daryl, just in case he needed help… Still me being an awesome wife thingy… even though I was still kinda pissed. I'm just that great I guess. He looked super pissed off though, which in the end was to make him mad so he would see how pissed I was.

Daryl killed one, then the other man, then they fought over who was going to kill one, then Andrea killed it, then the other man was going to kill one, but Daryl killed it.

Sadly, the second he finished my body decided to say "What can I do to make Kristyn be all needy?" and I instantly got killer cramps. I bent over in pain, causing Daryl to run over to me.

"Daryl, I'm fine…"

"No, you ain't fine."

"Yeah, take care of your bitch." The man said.

I stood up, ignoring the pain. "Okay, you really want to mess with us right now? I will fucking cut your balls off and feed them to the walkers. I will do it. Don't doubt it, asshole."

They both just gave me a look, Daryl's more of me finally referring to me and him as "us", and the man just confused that I actually said it.

Daryl went over to the walkers, to check if they had any knives or guns on them, but instead found a pack of cigarettes… of course… pregnant woman over here and you choose to smoke around her… NICE! I just got up and sat in the car, uninterested in anything else, and still in a lot of pain… damn pain…

Minutes later, we all met back by our trucks, Rick and the Governor came out and we were about to leave.

I went over to her, of course.

"Hey," I said, "I know we didn't exactly end on good terms an-"

"It's my fault. I know what went down, I shot your boyfriend. Anyways, when did that happen?" She said pointing at my stomach, which wasn't huge, but wasn't small.

"Found out right when we got to the prison."

"Damn that sucks…"

"Yeah, well we gotta go. Sorry." I said while giving her a hug goodbye. Sure, I didn't like Andrea, but she was better than the bitch… Andrea just shot Daryl, but Carol was trying to fucking get with him… I'll take the girl who shot him, thank you.

We got back in the car and drove back to the prison, Rick not telling us exactly what had happened.


	36. Daryl's POV

**MUAHAHAHA CHANGING IT UP!**

* * *

Kristyn was terrified because of her dream. She told me that what happened to Lori happened to her. I tried to calm her down about it, but she wanted nothing to do with me... well other than for me to stay with her that night in case anything happened. I still felt like shit for leaving her. I don't even know why I did it.. After seeing what Merle had been doing... what he wanted to do... He was going to steal from a family with a baby... Why would I want to be with that? Kristyn hated me for leaving her too, which was the hardest part of all of this... knowing I hurt her.

She basically ignored me most of the day, seeing as Rick, Michonne, and Carl were gone I didn't really have anything to do other than to talk with Merle, or Carol... and I really didn't want to talk to her... I may have saved the woman, but that didn't change how I feel about her leaving Kristyn behind. Kristyn was talking to Beth for a while, but just went and sat in her cell for a lot of the day.

Rick and the others got back and had a few baby supplies and a few guns, but not much.

Andrea even managed to find us at the prison, told us she wanted Rick and the governor to talk about things.

"Daryl, I need you to come, and Hershel, I know it's a lot to ask with your leg, but can you come?" Rick asked.

I went over to Rick and started to grab a few things that we may have needed.

"I'm coming." Kristyn said. I was shocked. I stopped what I was doing instantly. What? She wanted to go? Did she instantly forget she was having a baby?

"No you ain't.''

"Daryl, you don't control me at the moment, so yes, I am going. Deal with it…" What the fuck was happening? She wanted to go... what was I going to do?

"You're having a baby... you do realize that, correct?"

"I know exactly what I'm having. I'm going. Deal with it.

She grabbed the few knives I grabbed from her hummer before we had to leave it. I jumped on Merle's motorcycle. I swear the face he had when he realized I still had it was fucking priceless.

"You can still change your mind."

"The only bad things that could happen is they sneak attack us, in which case we would carefully get to the car, or a bunch of walkers walk on in, in which case we would, you guessed it, get in to the car… I'm not weak Daryl, even if I am pregnant…."

"Never said you were weak... do you think this is a good idea though?"

"I'll be fine.''

It was a short drive to the area Andrea told us to meet. They were already there, so Rick and the governor went into a shed to talk things through, followed by Andrea.

Kristyn sat in the car, while I was standing watch, making sure the governor's men didn't make a move. Hershel was sitting with one of the Governor's men as well. He was a nerdish kinda person...

"Maybe I should go inside." Hershel said.

"The Governor thought it best if he and Rick spoke privately." The nerd said.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked him.

"Milton Mamet."

"Great, brought his butler."

The other man with him chuckled.

"I'm his advisor."

"What kind of advice?"

"Planning, and Biters. Uh, you know, I'm sorry. I don't feel like I need to explain myself to the henchman."

"He'll tear you to shreds, best watch what you say, asshole." Kristyn called from the car.

"You'd better watch your mouth, sunshine."

"Look, if you and I are gonna be out here pointing guns at each other all day, do me a favor, shut the fuck up." I instantly went over to him, glaring at him.

"We don't need this. If all goes south in there, we'll be at each other's throats soon enough." Hershel said. I turned and walked back by Hershel. I went up to the car window.

"You okay?"

"Perfectly fine." Kristyn said angrily.

"Listen, I will do whatever it takes for you to forgive me, just tell me what it is."

"I just don't know Daryl... I don't know. You can let me punch you... get some of the angst out, but that's all I can think of right now..."

"Do what you gotta do. I don't care, I just want you back." She instantly swung at me, striking me straight across the face. Small girl, big punch. "A little better?"

"Maybe a little," She said as she leaned up and kissed my cheek where she punched me. "I love you, still. Don't forget it."

"Love you, too."

I walked back over to Hershel, and Andrea came out of the building.

We stood there for a while, until Milton had something he wanted to say. Kristyn hopped out of the car and came over by me, leaning in closer to me than she had in a while.

"There's no reason not to use this time we have together to explore the issues ourselves."

"Boss said to sit tight and shut up." The other man said.

"Don't you mean the Governor?" I asked him.

"It's a good thing they're sitting down, especially after what happened. They're gonna work it out. Nobody wants another battle."

"I wouldn't exactly call it a battle." I snapped.

"I would call it a battle and I did. I recorded it."

"For what?"

"Somebody's got to keep a record of what we've gone through. It'll be a part of our history."

"That makes sense." Hershel said.

"I've got dozens of interviews-" He was interrupted by a group of walkers moaning. I started to walk over to where they had come from, Kristyn followed, and the other man was close to me in the front.

"After you." I said to the man.

"Oh no, I insist, you first." Andrea just glares at both of us and walks over and stabs its head. "Pussy."

"You gonna let him talk to you like that?" Kristyn asked me.

"Do you know me?" I said as I raised my crossbow and sent an arrow shooting into the brain of a walker.

The man continued to use his baseball bat. Andrea walked away from the seen, sighing. I saw the man about to swing on another walker, until I decided to shoot my arrow to it before he had the chance. The arrow got its way through the brain and into the neck of another walker. He was about to swing, until I pulled out my knife and threw it into the head of the other walker.

I just nodded at the man, but seconds later, Kristyn let out a small squeak. I turned and saw her bent over, which meant she was having cramps... again.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine, just do what you need to do."

"Right now I need to take care of you."

"That's right, take care of your bitch."

The second he said it, she stood up, ignoring the pain and said. "Okay, you really want to mess with us right now? I will fucking cut your balls off and feed them to the walkers. I will do it. Don't doubt it, asshole." That's my girl. I went over to the walkers to check for any weapons or anything useful, and found a pack of cigarettes on one. I looked over at Kristyn and saw her walking away toward the cars.

"Look what he's got." I said as I took one out of the pack, and offered him one.

"Nah, I prefer menthols."

"Douchebag. You army or something?"

"Nah, I just hate those things... After what they did... to my wife... kids."

"Sucks."

"Thanks... This is a joke, right? They ain't gonna work anything out. Sure they'll do their little dance and tomorrow, next day... They'll give the word."

"I know..." That was the last thing that was said between us. We went back to the cars and I sat with Kristyn... and of course Rick and the governor never made an agreement... well one that Rick told us about right away at least...


	37. Forgiven

**So after I finish the third season there is going to be a small break :/ I will make it go as slowly as possible though! I will be super descriptive and make the chapters at least 1000 words. I also made a schedule! **

**Carry On: Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.**

**Bunny (My other TWD Daryl fanfic): Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays! **

**I am going to keep to the schedule the best I can, but if I miss Carry on one night I will post that instead of bunny or just post two of them! **

**I am going to split this into two stories after season three is over! So I will post it on here after, or if you all think I should keep it as one story, I could do that too! It doesn't matter to me :P **

**Also, I am now an owner of TWDS3 XD I love it so much! AHHH!**

* * *

Rick pulled Daryl away to talk and I was sitting in the prison. I was beginning to forgive him a little more... I missed him... a lot. I needed him with me, but Merle ruined that. I decided to pull Merle aside and take the chance to talk to him.

"What's wrong sweetheart?" I shivered at the word. That's what that fat ass who almost raped me had been calling me.

"Please don't call me that. And we need to talk."

"'Bout what?"

"You and Daryl. You need to know that he's with me..."

"He was with me first. And from what I recall, we saved your ass."

"Karmin and I let you in... from what I recall we saved your ass. Sure you could have just left us at the diner, but you probably almost starved to death."

"So? Does it look like I care? He's my brother."

"He's my husband..."

"When'd that happen?"

"When you were gone..."

"When I was gone? I was gone? More like I was left."

"We came back for you... You didn't need to move. We told you that. Anyways, to my point. You hurt Daryl, or make him leave me again, I will slit your throat."

"You ain't got what it takes."

"Don't underestimate me. Too many people have done that... I will do it. I have no problem with it."

"Whatever you say..." Merle said, doubt in his voice.

I start to walk away and see Daryl is standing behind me.

"Threatenin' my brother now, huh?"

"Yeah... Can we talk?"

"Sure, what about?"

"In private... not around him..."

"Fine, let's go outside or somethin'." I nodded as he began to lead us outside.

"I'm sorry..." I said.

"Why you apologizing'?"

"Because I'm a bitch... I shouldn't be mad at you, not anymore... I have had enough time to get over it."

"You take as much time as ya need. Sure I want ya back, but I ain't gonna rush ya into it."

"Aren't you mad, or upset, or anything?"

"Well, yeah, but it is my fault this happened... I left with Merle, I shouldn't have... He was never there for me... Hell, he left me to my dad and let him beat me... I don't even know why I left with him..."

"Wait... Your dad beat you?"

"Uh, yeah... but let's not talk about that."

"No, Daryl... tell me..."

"Used to cut me, punch me, anything he could think of really, mainly when he was drunk... hell, he was always drunk... that's why Merle left. Merle was gonna kill him... Dad stopped takin' it out on him and started to take it out on me. That's all there is too it."

"I'm sorry..."

"Don't be, you weren't there... It's Merle's fault."

"Anyways, I don't want to be mad anymore."

"So am I forgiven?"

"You're forgiven." I said while I leaned up and pecked his cheek, "I love you."


	38. Merle

**Sorry super short… someone decided to borrow my season three without my permission… so it won't be that great :( sowwy...**

Everyone was working trying to clear the field a little bit. Except for me… I was sitting inside taking care of Lil' ass kicker. Merle wasn't either. No one trusted him, they left me a gun in case he tried anything… Daryl was the only person who trusted him. Merle was looking out the window while I was burping Judith.

"Ain't no way…" Merle whispered.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing. Got any whiskey? Hell, I'd even drink vodka at this point."

"Go to hell… Are you with us?"

"Sure."

"Not just occupying the same space Merle… Are you _with _ us."

"I'm here for my brother."

"He's here for me… and the rest of the group… It isn't the time to do shots Merle… It's time to choose what side you're on."

"You've changed Kristyn… You know that right? You used to be so… independent… now you're just a little bitch who sits around waitin' for everyone to protect her."

"I'm pregnant… I can't really be out there running around like I used to… If I could be independent I would be…"

"Ain't no excuse. You could be out there helpin' clear out that field, but you just sit in here taking care of a baby."

"Someone has to, and it's good practice." I say as I lean Judith up against my chest where she can hear the heartbeat. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly in shape to be out there helping… Merle, you should do me a favor, shut the fuck up."

"Whatever you say sweetheart."

Merle left back into a different cell block. Rick told us what the governor wanted… he wanted Michonne… he said he would leave us alone if we gave him Michonne… so what other option did we have? Rick was going to have Merle do it. Daryl went through the prison and found Merle and told him about Michonne. Clearly Merle agreed because within about 30 minutes, he was gone and he took Michonne. We were once again sitting around… doing absolutely nothing… What could I do other than hold Judith? That's all I did, feed Judith, Change Judith, burp Judith, cuddle her, cradle her… that's all.

Somehow Michonne got back… Without Merle of course. She told us that Merle let her go. Daryl instantly went out to find Merle… he was gone for about an hour and when he came back, he was in tears.

"Daryl?" I asked, Judith in my arms. He just walked past me and went up on the cat walk. "Daryl what happened?"

"Merle… He's dead…"

"Oh, God… Daryl, I'm so sorry…"

"I… I don't know… I fought to keep him around and he goes out and gets himself killed? He wasn't bit either… someone killed him…"

"Daryl… I know you cared about him…"

"I'm gonna kill the Governor… I know it was him… His body was where we did the meet up…"

"I won't stop you from killing him… You go ahead… he's hurt us too much already Daryl…"

"Go put the baby down and come lay down with me… please?"

"Okay…"

I go lay Judith down and go back up to Daryl and he instantly pulls me into him, holding me tight, not wanting to let go.

**Like I said... Not that great... and really short... the next chapter will be long... I promise... and then I will go back and do a few chapters in Daryl's pov for you! :D**


	39. Harsh Words: Daryl's POV

**Daryl POV**

I had just returned from looking for Sophia. I still thought she was out there. I thought I knew it.

Carol was doing laundry. "Any luck?" She asked.

"Sorry, nope. Have you seen Kristyn?"

"Uh, I haven't seen her around for a while, maybe in the house?"

I went in and started to look around. I found Maggie inside, cleaning the kitchen.

"Maggie? Have you seen Kristyn?"

"Nope, sorry." Damn… another dead end…

I found Shane outside… asked him…

"I saw her walk out into the woods… Right by the campsite. Had her crossbow and a few knives."

"God dammit." I said right before bolting toward the woods.

I, of course, couldn't go too fast, I had to look for her tracks. I found them and started to walk, following them.

I kept looking around, making sure the tracks were still in the same direction. She's smart. She kept in one direction the entire time.

I found her… On the ground with a walker on top of her. I shoot the walker with my crossbow.

"Daryl?"

"We're talking 'bout this when we get back… hope you know that."

I help her up, grab my bolt and we start to run. I turn, take care of the other few walkers that are chasing us.

"I'm sorry." She whispered so quietly I could hardly hear.

"No! You almost died Kristyn! Can't you listen to anything?!" I shouted.

"Sorry I wanted to help Daryl!"

"God! Let's just get back."

"Thank you for saving me..."

"What if I wasn't there to save you? What would have happened then?"

"Then... I don't know... I won't go out again. Is that what you want?"

"I want you to listen to me. To trust me. I knew you couldn't take care of a problem like that. I knew it, but you didn't trust me. I can take care of myself, but you need someone to protect you."

"I took care of my family just fine."

"Yeah, you took care of them all right... That's why they're all dead right." Her face twisted in pure pain the second I said it. "Oh my god... I'm so sorry. Kristyn, I didn't mean it." She ignored me for a few minutes.

"How could you say something like that to me?! To anyone for that matter!?"

"I didn't mean it, it just slipped out and-"

"If it just slipped out, you must have been thinking it, right?"

"I-"

"Just shut up. Please?"

"I'm-" I sigh… I had probably just lost the woman I loved…

She went straight into her Hummer the second we got back… Damn… I honestly didn't know what to do… so I just went to her hummer and knocked.

"You have a lot of apologizing to do... I hope you know that." She snapped

"I do, that's why I'm here."

"Okay, shoot.

"Okay, so you clearly know how I feel about you. I was just scared. Freakin' out. You almost died today, and if I didn't get there in time... I don't know what I would have done. I didn't mean to bring in your family, hell if someone brought my family into, I would beat the shit out of them, bu-" She punched me across the face, interrupting what I was saying. "What was that for?" I said while rubbing where she punched me.

"Just doin' what you said you would do, only I toned it down a bit. I'd say you had that coming." She laughed.

"Okay, fine, you did earn that."

"Hell yeah I did. You are now forgiven."

"You ain't going out there alone again are ya?"

"Nope... One walker encounter is enough for me thank you."

"That's what I thought. You wanna stay in here tonight or come into the tent?"

"Why don't you stay in here with me for tonight?"

"Don't mind if I do." I pulled her into me, glad the whole mess was over.


	40. Preparations

**SO! I want to know, do you want me to make up some of season 4 or wait for it to come out, because I am clearly almost done with Season 3 :P just asking. Also, sorry for not posting for a while, someone borrowed my TWD season 3 disks and I didn't want to write without them :P **

* * *

All we were doing was preparing for the 'war'. It was honestly super boring for me, simply because Daryl forbade me from doing anything... All I did was sit and take care of Ass Kicker... I would have rather been holding a gun... but NOOOOO... that's too dangerous... Sadly forgiving Daryl meant that he now had a little control over what I did... It's okay, though... as long as he's safe I'm good...

"You take Judith and you hide... Go with Hershel and them or something... that will probably be the safest." Daryl told me.

"Oh yes, a crying baby in the woods... great idea..."

"Well, what would you suggest?"

"I don't know... If I can get Judith to shut up that would be fine, but I don't know if I will be able to do that..."

"Well, ya can't stay in the cell block... they'll probably check there first if they go in... And you ain't goin' deep into the prison..."

"Going with Hershel and the others is the only choice... I have to do it. Or I could sit with Maggie in the gates... but that's directly in the line of fire if we do end up fighting..."

"You're goin' with Hershel... I don't know where else to send ya..."

"I wish I knew..."

"You can come with me." Carol said, cutting in.

"Where you goin'?" Daryl asked.

"You actually wouldn't ask me to go with her would you? After all she's done?"

"We can go sit in a guard tower or something, be safe up there, they probably won't hear Judith either if she cries, so it will be safe. We can have a gun up there in case we need it and there."

"Still... Carol... it's you and we don't exactly have a good past..."

"I was an idiot... You make Daryl happy and that's all that matters..." She was actually starting to realize that Daryl and I were together! What the hell did I miss? She was such a bitch before...

"Yeah, maybe we should... talk about things..."

"Damn right ya should."

"I guess I'm going with Carol..." I said with a sigh...

* * *

**SUPER SHORT! SOWWY! Okay, so I am going to be out of town and won't have my laptop or anything, so i can't update this weekend, but I will work on it on paper so I will hopefully have a new chapter by sunday night! I have been working really hard on my 'Bunny' story too, so when I finish season three on here, either I will wait for season four and keep working really hard on Bunny or I will just make up my own season four :P Tell me what you want me to do though, otherwise i don't know! AHHH!**


	41. Guard Tower

_**I got all of this on paper! WOOH! I wrote so much this weekend on the car ride.. we drove for 4 hours and 30 minutes! So you can imagine how much of that I was writing... oh yeah.. all of it :P Well hopefully it was worth it! I hope you like this!**_

* * *

The next day we started to get in position for the battle. Carol and I took Judith up to the guard tower more toward the back. We also grabbed some food, bottles, blankets, and her 'crib' (It wasn't really a crib… it was a basket… but let's call it a crib…) We both also had guns with us just in case we needed them. Everyone helped packing things up and driving the cars a little ways away so it looked like we packed up and moved on.

Sitting in the guard tower was absolutely boring… I didn't want to talk to Carol, but had no choice really… it was either talk to her or talk to Judith… and I've been talking to Judith so much that I seemed crazy…

"So, we need to talk…" Carol said, breaking the extremely awkward silence.

"Yeah… we do… You'd think I may be over this by now, but I'm not, you told Rick to leave me…. You're clinging to Daryl… Why?"

"He's the only one who cared if Sophia came back… You didn't seem like you cared at all… No one did… Except him."

"I went out and looked, and I would have gone out even more if I hadn't almost died that one time I did. You didn't seem to care… You didn't even come to her funeral… You went out once to look for her… Why are you telling me I didn't care when you seemed to care less? And Why did you let Rick leave me?"

"It doesn't matter anymore… Talking isn't the only reason I wanted you to come with me." She said as she reaching for her gun.

"What?" I asked as she pointed it at my head. "What are you going to tell everyone when you go back without me?"

"That they found us, that I hardly made it out with Judith."

"You really think they'll believe that?"

"Why wouldn't they?"

"Why didn't The Governor kill you too? I would think that he would kill everyone in sight… And Daryl won't believe you… He'll kill you for leaving me."

"No, he won't. He'll get over you."

"I'm having his baby and you just leave me… Are you going to kill an unarmed woman?"

"You're hardly a woman…" She said as she moved her finger onto the trigger. She pulled it, but I jumped out of the way in time. I grabbed my gun out of my jeans and pointed at her.

"Carol, put the fucking gun down, now. I'll shoot you…." I started to walk toward her slowly. "Just give me the gun. We don't have to do this… It doesn't have to end like this." She put the gun down by her side, and kneeled down to put it on the ground. "Take it easy, Carol." I took another step toward her and she put the gun on the ground. She stood up slowly and I put my gun back in my jeans.

"Okay… Okay…" She said with a sigh.

I turned away to look out the window. I saw a few trucks drive in the prison, shooting down one of the guard towers. I watch as they keep shooting down the walkers and trying to find out people. They walk into the building, but the second they do, Carol tackles me to the ground. My stomach hit the ground first, which probably wasn't good on the baby… "WHAT THE HELL CAROL!"

She kept fighting with me. She got off of me long enough that I could roll over and look at her face. The second I rolled over, she started to throw punches to my face. I tried to reach for the knife Daryl made me bring (Thank God for Daryl… always thinking ahead…) But she pinned my hand down.

"Carol! Stop this!" I said. She started to choke me, but I started to kick and flail around enough that she was thrown off of me. Gasping for breath I said, "Carol- you aren't going to- win." I grabbed for the knife that was attached at my belt.

"Like hell I'm not." She said as she ran at me again. I moved out of the way. Judith, of course, was screaming from the gun Carol had fired… dumb bitch. It honestly took everything I had not to grab the poor thing… hold her close to me, let her know it was okay, but I had to take care of Carol… knock her out or something…

Carol ran at me one last time, but I had my knife up, and I stabbed her in the arm. She let out a slight scream. I stabbed her two more times in different places.

"BITCH!" She screamed out.

"Shut up, Carol, you lost. You can keep fighting with one arm and I can kill you, or you can stop and live, maybe have that arm of yours saved… take your pick…"

She started to punch me with her other arm.

"You chose wrong, Carol. I said as I stabbed her stomach. She let out a long breath. She kept trying to fight me, but it wasn't working, she'd lost her strength. I throw her off of me and lean over her. "If this baby dies because of you…" I kneed her in the side.

"What will you do? I'll already be dead…"

"I won't be able to do anything, but just know that Daryl will hate you forever. That's who you care about, right? Daryl? He can handle you now, he'll probably be able to handle you after this, but this baby, this is something _he _wanted. He'll hate you if you're the one that took that away from him." I stab her in the head, glad the whole mess is over.

I went over to Judith, who was still screaming. I picked her up and pulled her close to me leaning her up against my chest where my heart was beating rapidly. Babies like heartbeats… That's what my mom always taught me… and without Lori, mine was the only one Judith could listen to.

I looked out the window and saw the trucks driving away. I sat in the tower though, waiting for Daryl to come get me. Minutes later he came, and when he did I was sitting on the ground on the opposite side from Carol's body.

"What happened here?"

"She tried to kill me… She had her gun up and tried to shoot me Daryl… Then I got her to put it down, but she tackled me… made me fall on my stomach… I finished her though… But what if she killed the baby?" I said, tears welling up in my eyes.

"Don't' think like that. Come on, let's get you back in the cell block… we'll tell the others what happened…"

I nod and grabbed the bag that had the formula and bottles in it. He stopped me and pulled me in for a hug. "It's okay, Kristyn. You did what you had to do."

"I know… It's still so… weird.. she's been in the group forever… so without her it just won't seem right… Me and her always fighting… Everything will just be easier for me now…"

"I know. Let me grab the bed…" He said as he released me.

* * *

Judith had calmed down thankfully. We walked back into the cell block, me holding Judith close to me, tears still fresh in my eyes. I wasn't really crying because I killed Carol… more because she may have killed my baby… I looked around and saw Rick looking over at me and Daryl in confusion.

"Where's Carol?"

"She tried to shoot me… Tackled me… tried to kill me… I got her first though…"

"Are you okay?"

"Fine… Here, take your baby… She was screaming the entire time…"

"We need to finish this." Rick said as he took Judith out of my arms.

"What do you mean?" If he meant Carol, hadn't I just done that?

"We're going to Woodbury…" He said.

* * *

_**I hope you guys liked this... I hate Carol (Obviously...) And hate Caryl even more than I hate Carol herself... She's a bitch :P lol I just wanted her gone... so I did it :D don't hate me for it! **_


	42. New Beginnings

**So, I just got to thinking... People who ship Daryl and Beth... would their shipping name be "Deth" or "Baryl"? Sorry... totally random... I like Deth the best though. :P**

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"You're going to go after them?" I asked.

"He'll be back if we don't take care of it... we need to finish this." Rick told me.

"But going there... Why? You could just wait for him to come back here..."

"Why wait? We can finish it now." Daryl said.

"Well, whose all going?"

"Who all wants to? I'm going."

"Count me in." Michonne said.

"Obviously me..." Rick told us.

"Count me and Maggie out. We'll stay here and protect camp in case he comes back here for us."

"I don't feel right about this... It doesn't feel right at all..." I mutter.

"We don't have much other choice right now. Let's get it over with."

I walk over to Daryl, who was sitting on a table.

"If you don't come back..."

"When don't I come back? I'm Daryl Dixon." I rolled my eyes at him.

"Just because you're Daryl Dixon doesn't guarantee your ticket back here..."

"I'll be back. Don't worry 'bout it." He said as he pulled me in for a hug.

They went out and got guns, more grenade things, and Daryl got his crossbow and bolts.

"Don't take too long..." I said as I leaned up and kissed Daryl.

"I'll try not to."

I gave him one last kiss before we opened the gate, sending them out to finish the whole mess. It was just about night when they left.

We all sat either in the cell block, or in a guard tower, keeping watch, making sure that there were no trucks coming our way. None came of course.

Hershel decides to do a little "check up" on me and the baby... how he'd check the baby, I don't know... but whatever...

"Have you felt anything out of the ordinary? Like anything in the stomach?"

"Uh, I think so... I felt a wiggle this morning, but I figured it was my stomach growling."

"That could have been the baby moving. That gives us a small indication of how far along you are."

"And how long do you think that is?"

"Anywhere from 13-25 weeks..."

"That's a pretty large gap, Hershel..."

"It's more than what we knew..."

"I guess you're right..." I said as I walked out of the cell we were in.

Hours passed and it was almost morning and I started to freak out.

"We should go check on them... or something..." I said.

"We can't risk it, Kristyn."

"They went to finish this! What if they were caught!? We can't just leave them there, to be tortured... If we went now we could still finish it."

"We're not going." Glenn said.

"Give me a car, I'll go."

"You're not going out there!"

I started to cry a little... If Daryl was caught, or Rick or Michonne...

"I'm sorry... I can't though... and I bet they're fine. They'll be back in no time."

We wait about another hour and hear Daryl's motorcycle come driving up.

I ran outside, carefully of course. I tried to open the gate, but was lightly pushed out of the way by Glenn. I pulled out my knife and stabbed a few walkers that were up against the fence. Glenn opened it up and let them in. The only thing out of the ordinary was a large bus that trailed behind Rick and Michonne.

Daryl jumped off his motorcycle and ran to me. He pulled me in for a deep, passionate kiss.

"Sorry we took so long... We found Andrea and... well.. she was bit..."

"Why is there a bus?" I asked, ignoring what he just told me.

"Those were the people who were at Woodbury. They're with us now... they didn't know what to do..."

"Aren't those the people who wanted you dead?"

"Well, yeah, but I ain't gonna let them die over something as stupid as the Governor going nuts..."

I saw multiple people getting out of the bus, young and old.

"Things are going to be really different now. Look at how many there are..." I said as I looked around at all the people. Hey, none of them were Carol right? And if they tried to move in on Daryl... well... They'd have one angry pregnant Kristyn on their hands...

Let's just call this a new beginning for everyone. Me and Daryl not having to worry about Carol, the people of Woodbury not having to worry about "terrorists" or the Governor... everyone could just restart, make a life in the prison... yeah... not many people say that they want to make a new life in a prison, huh?

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**IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ**

**Not my longest chapter, but not my shortest either :P SO! I need to know! Do you want me to pause here, make my own chapters, or should I wait for the show to start up again? IT'S ALL UP TO YOU! So I am going to make a poll! Woop woop! Check it out on my page! **


	43. Time Flies

**So, I am deciding to switch over to a present tense instead of past. WOOP WOOP CHANGING THINGS UP! But if you guys don't like it, tell me and I can switch it back. I figured the first line of this (...and begin to think of the past months...) the past 40 or so chapters have been you listening in on her thoughts (I guess that's the best way to put it.) So tell me what you think of it! or does it even matter? I DON'T KNOW AHH!**

* * *

I lie down in a random cell, and begin thinking about the past months. Time flies… seriously, it seems like just yesterday that Daryl showed up at that diner…. Just yesterday that he was the hard ass who cared for no one but himself… But look where he and I are at now.

I look down at my bulging stomach when I feel a slight kick from the baby. Miraculously, the baby wasn't hurt when Carol tackled me. I pat my stomach where the kick is.

"You okay?" Daryl asks as he sits down on the edge of the bed in the cell I am in.

"Yeah, she's just wiggling around." I have this strange idea that the baby is going to be a girl. Daryl, of course, thinks it's going to be a boy.

"_He's _just wigglin' around." I roll my eyes.

"When it's a girl, I'm going to laugh at you. Here, give me your hand!" I say as the baby starts to kick again. I put his hand on the spot the baby is kicking and his face lights up when he feels it.

"I'll never be used to feelin' that."

"First time I felt it I thought it was an Alien… Creepy shit."

"Makes me glad I'm a man…"

"Yeah, you guys get the easy part."

"You been feelin' okay, though? No cramps or anything like that?"

"Nope, I've been absolutely perfect."

"Ya sure? Do ya need anything?"

"Nope, I'm good."

"You make things too easy sometimes…"

"I try."

I must say though, living with twenty or so other people isn't all that fun… the kids are all kind of annoying… and I hate to say that about kids, because I love kids, I would have to because I wanted to be an elementary teacher before all of this. But these kids? They lived the spoiled life in Woodbury, they run and scream and need to be reminded that there are walkers that we need to be careful about…

Other than that they aren't _that _bad. They aren't used to having to actually do real work though. They were used to having nothing to do, just getting to sit around all day and all night, sure there are some days that are like that, but not many, and someone has to be on watch constantly….

When Daryl sits on watch, I typically sit with him, seeing as it's the only place we can really be _alone_. Of course there have been a few times when we've been able to sneak away, and those few times are absolute HEAVEN (You know what we did…), but they are rare… damn apocalypse… then again, I shouldn't say "Damn Apocalypse" because otherwise I probably wouldn't have met Daryl.

Daryl has to sit on watch, so I follow him out.

"I just wish this were all over… I wish they would just die off or something." I whisper as I walk up next to him.

"I think you know it ain't happenin' that way… It ain't ever gonna be over, we'll always be livin' in fear… that's how it's gonna be." He says as he pulls me up next to him.

"How can you know that? Maybe they'll just starve out or something… if they can't find people to eat, they'll die, and then the only issue is taking care of people when they die."

"That's just a dream… hate to say it, but that's all it is."

"I know it is… I can dream, though, can't I?"

He lets out a soft chuckle.

"Will we have to leave the prison?"

"Depends if there are walkers findin' their way in. We may need to. There have been more walkers around than there were."

"That's a scary thought… What if we have to leave before I have the baby? It's hardly safe to have it in here…"

"Don't worry 'bout that right now." He says. I lean up and kiss him. I know he's a little scared, even if he won't admit it. "Go lay down or somethin', I can take care of this right now."

"You sure? I can stay out here."

"I'm fine, go in." I lean up and kiss him before I walk inside. I go and sit in the room we kept Merle in. I remember how upset Daryl was when he found Merle as a walker… and I mean, he was UPSET. He was crying… Daryl doesn't cry… ever… I still remember how much of an asshole I thought Merle was, but Daryl told us all that there were some of the Governor's men's bodies lying around there, some dead from gunshot, so Merle had to be fighting…. Merle didn't seem like the kind of man who would sacrifice himself for others, and yet he was gone because he did.

Then I start to think about Carol… the bitch who always acted like she was sacrificing herself for the group, but ended up trying to kill me… But I won and that's all that matters.

* * *

**Bad place to end, but I'm super freaking tired... lol hope you liked this little bit.**


	44. Hippo

**MERP another chapter tonight! Really really short though! It's almost midnight and I has te school and such…**

Life without Carol? Yeah, it's absolutely awesome. Daryl and I have never been closer really. She just got in the way of everything when she was around. And I'm also super proud to say that I was the one that got rid of her. Part of me wonders what Sophia would have turned out like if she were still alive, though. Would she be like her mom, or would she be the sweet little girl we all knew and loved? Sadly, that is something that will never be known.

"AH! Screw cravings!" I shout. Daryl and I are sitting on the catwalk, which is still our 'room'.

"What you want now?" Daryl asks.

"Fucking everything… If food were available like it used to be I would probably be the size of a fucking hippo…" He starts to chuckle. "What?"

"I just imagined what you'd look like as a hippo." Then the image popped in my head, and I start to laugh along with him.

"I think I'd be a pretty sexy hippo."

"If I were into that sort of thing, then yes you would be." I look down at a little boy, no older than 4, who is running back and forth with the other kids. They are playing tag or something like that. I've been keeping an eye on most of the kids, seeing as Rick will take random people out on runs, sometimes Daryl has to go, but sometimes he doesn't. The boy is laughing, running having a good time, until a boy who is about two or three years older than him walks over and shoves him over. Daryl and I stand up angrily almost at the same time.

"Hey! Why'd you do that?" I ask.

"I wanted to. I don't like Jacob." The other little boy said.

"Well, maybe Jacob doesn't like you, but you don't push him over because of that. What would your mom say about that?" I say as I pick Jacob off the floor, he has a few tears going down his face so I hold him and hug him. "Get out of here. Don't play if you can't play nice."

He walks away, probably over to his mom. "Are you okay, bud?" Daryl asks the little boy in my arms.

"Yeah, that's Tyler, he's not very nice!"

"If he bothers you again, come get me okay?"

"Okay!" He says as he jumps down out of my arms. Daryl starts chuckling again.

"What now?"

"I just pictured you as a hippo again."

"You're such an ass." I say through a laugh.

**I TOLD YOU IT WOULD BE SHORT! I'M SORRY! AHHH!**


	45. Author Update

**So, apparently I was "Disrespectful" and now I'm grounded for a month... I'm sneaking on now to tell everyone there won't be an update on either story for a while... but I will work really hard on it on paper! I'm sorry that my mom's being stupid (I would call her a bitch, but little does she know, I have more respect for her than that...) I LOVE YOU GUYS AND I'M SORRY!**


	46. Scavenging

**MERHERHERHERHER SNEAKING ON THE INTERNETS! I LOVE YOU GUYS STILL AND REALLY HOPE YOU WILL STILL READ IT EVEN THOUGH MY MOM WAS A DERP!**

**A super short update... very short... sorry :( but this is all I can get without my mom seeing...**

* * *

I'm with Daryl, looking through a small store in the area for anything useful. A few of the people that came from Woodbury are helping us incase we need them. Daryl, of course, didn't want me to come, but I insisted I came with, I also reassured him telling him "If anything happens, all of the other people will be with us to help, it's not like you and I are the only one's going." But he is making me carry his big knife around... and I have to stay by his side no matter what happens.

"Why'd ya even wanna come anyways?" He says as we work our way down the baby aisle.

"I hate just sitting around. Especially when there are things that I could be helping with. Sure, at the farm there wasn't anything I could help with other than laundry, but now that I'm pregnant and there are things to do, I just get super antsy."

"So you're like me then. Never wanting to stop doing things."

"Yep, why do you think we're so perfect for each other?" I ask as I grab two cans of baby formula that are just sitting there, begging me to grab them. "Sorry, I know you don't like me coming with on stuff like this."

"No one wanted you to come."

"I don't care what they wanted me to do or not do. I only care what you think... without you I probably would have killed myself way before this."

"No, you wouldn't have, who knows, maybe Karmin would still be around if we never met."

"I honestly doubt that. Maybe Merle would still be alive though..."

"Maybe... we ain't never gonna know that though, so don't worry 'bout it."

We get down the rest of the baby aisle, picking up a few more baby necessities. We meet up with the rest of the group at the end of the store and see they have some food, water and a few other necessities.

"We ready to go?" Karen asks.

"Yeah, we got quite a bit this time." I say to her as I pull my gun out, just in case. "Let's get the hell outta here." Daryl steps in front of me, pulls up his crossbow and shoves the door open. There are about fifteen walkers outside, easily taken care of, but we use our guns. When we finish them, we get to the cars. Daryl hops on his motorcycle though... I refuse to ride it for obvious reasons... We drive away through a whole group of walkers, drawn in from the noise of the gun fire. I'm, of course, in the car freaking out because Daryl's out there on the motorcycle all exposed and such... Of course he always comes out alive, but still... I can't help but worry...


	47. Chapter 46

**HONEY I'M HOME! Temporarily... but hey, a little is better than none, right? This will be a little longer hopefully... i really don't know... I will try to update twice this week though... cuz i luffs ya. Once again, sorry for my absence! My mom added on another week, but I'm in Italy right now visiting a friend, and they aren't here with me... MUAHAHAHAHA I WINS! This next small snippet is a thing from one of my aunts. She told me a story about when she was pregnant and turned into this little masterpiece! Some humor in it I guess... or maybe I'm the only one that found this funny... lol enjoy i guess.**

* * *

"Hey, Daryl?" I call out, desperately needing his help.

"What's wrong?" He asks in a worried voice. He looks at me, confsed. "Why ain't ya wearin' pants?"

"How much do you love me?"

"A bunch, but that don't answer my question."

"They don't fit anymore..."

"What ya need me to do?"

"I need you to stretch them for me... I don't know if it will work, but it's better than walking around in my underwear..."

"How do i do that?"

I let out a slight laugh and scratch the back of my head. "I, um, kinda need you to put them on."

"Hand 'em over."

"You're the best. Hope you know that."

"I know. I'll go out and find ya bigger clothes or somethin'. Holy shit... how the hell you been squeezin' into these things?"

"I'm not THAT fat... I haven't worn them for two weeks, they would have probably been stretching right along with me if I'd been wearing them..." I say. I start to laugh when I look back at him. Daryl in women's jeans? Fucking priceless

"Yeah, yeah laugh at the guy doin' you a favor." He says as he tries to get them off, but struggles. When he gets them off, he throws them at me. I put them on. They're looser than they were, still too tight, but looser.

"Once again, you're the best."

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**Short, I know... but once again, can't get caught on here... bad ending too... don't know what to title this so it's just gonna be chapter whatever :P**


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